In July 2005, I graduated as a Mechanical Engineer [Mechanical Power Techniques] at the Faculty of Applied Sciences at the University of Ghent.

In my final year at university, I made a dissertation:

"Evaluation of the performance of HVAC-equipment at the VIB-building"

A newly constructed building in Zwijnaarde (Belgium) for the VIB (Flemish institute for biotechnology) has been equipped with a state-of-the-art HVAC system, allowing Free Cooling during colder periods of the year.

The goal of the dissertation was to evaluate the performance of this HVAC system, and to make a comparison between working with Electric Chillers and Free Cooling.

Finally, with the aid of the simulation package VisualDOE, an analysis of electrical uses was made.

The results showed that the Free Cooling system had been hugely overdimensioned, and that savings on electricity were much lower than anticipated. Also, the COP of both chillers and free cooling system was unusually low.

This dissertation can be requested freely.

A paper was also published about my dissertation, and published in the proceedings of the 2005 Vicenza congress.