Authors
Rajan Rawal
Publication date
2021/9/3
Publisher
Ahemdabad
Description
In recent times, the building sector has experienced a proliferation of air-conditioned spaces leading to higher operational energy consumption. Reduction in operational energy for buildings is seen as one of the effective measures to limit long-term climate change. Air-conditioned buildings are conventionally designed and operated to maintain homogeneous thermal conditions within the acceptable thermal range of the occupants. However, maintaining the entire built volume at a homogeneous temperature can lead to high operational energy consumption and can cause dissatisfaction of occupants due to the lack of individual control. Personal Comfort Systems (PCS) allow the occupants to create and control desired localised thermal conditions around their workstations while allowing the ambient indoor thermal conditions to remain at the outdoor neutral thermal comfort range, thereby saving energy. The provision of control over their immediate thermal ambience renders the occupants more satisfied and comfortable. This study investigated the effectiveness of a PCS named as Thermally Activated Furniture (TAF), operating on the radiant cooling principle. The study concentrated on low-height vertical partitions placed to the front and left of a desktop, which doubled up as radiant cooling panels. The study simulated and measured the variation of overall and local Skin Temperature (Tskin), overall and local Heat Flux (and#934;), along with Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) through (a) Simulation experiments on a numerical mannequin in a digital environment and (b) Laboratory experiments on a physical mannequin in the controlled conditions of …