Thermal Comfort Analysis of Personalized Conditioning System and Performance Assessment with Different Radiant Cooling Systems

The radiant systems consume less energy and provide better thermal comfort as compared to the conventional system,but the main drawback of radiant technology is inability to cater the latent load and condensation.This problem has engaged researchers to push their emphasis on Personalized Conditioning System(PCS).It forms a micro-climate region near the occupant.This study is aimed at PCS combined with a radiant conditioning system,which evaluates the performance of the PCS and compares it with different radiant cooling systems.A radiant cubicle was used to investigate the performance of the PCS for both heating&cooling modes.For heating mode,the Standard Effective Temperature(SET)was calculated with the help of thermal comfort surveys which were in a range of 23.4℃ to 27.3℃.For cooling mode,four different cases compared the performance of the system which are:Conventional Air Conditioning System(CACS),Radiant Cooled Ceiling System(RCCS),Personalized Radiant Conditioning System(PRCS),and both PRCS-RCCS coupled.It was observed that PRCS alone reaches the thermal comfort criteria with low energy consumption.The energy-saving of RCCS-PRCS was achieved 38%when compared with CACS.It can be concluded that PRCS is a new step in the field of thermal comfort.

Natural Ventilation Design:Predicted and Measured Performance of a Hostel Building in Composite Climate of India

Natural ventilation is recognized for improving the thermal comfort of the built environment and indoor air quality.It provides comfortable conditions for building occupants and reduces energy consumption for air-conditioning.Therefore,it is important to study and explore effective means of ventilation to improve the building designs.This study investigates the thermal comfort of a naturally ventilated hostel operational building in the composite climate of Jaipur,India using Computational Fluid Dynamics(CFD)simulation tool‘Cradle scSTREAM’.A 3D building model has been developed to analyze the thermal comfort for different natural ventilation strategies with advanced mesh algorithms which generate fewer mesh elements and maintain good mesh quality.A field study was carried out to collect the actual data and to validate the model which was further used to evaluate the thermal comfort range based on the ASHRAE-55 standard.Several design strategies have been applied to enhance thermal comfort.It was found that an increase in air velocity up to 0.5 m/s was achieved by Cross Ventilation while a drop of 2.0-2.5℃in the air temperature was found using Night Ventilation.It can be stated that cross ventilation increases the air movement while night ventilation gives comparatively higher comfort regarding air temperature and relative humidity.