A Simplified Thermal Comfort Calculation Method of Radiant Floor Cooling Technology for Office Buildings in Northern China

Abstract

The increasing application of floor heating technology promotes the development of floor radiant cooling technology (abbreviated as FRC technology). Many office buildings in northern China try to use FRC technology to cool in summer, but thermal comfort is the key problem restricting the promotion of this technology. The thermal comfort problems of an office room with floor radiant cooling were studied in this paper by the methods of numerical simulation, control variable, and data fitting, and the experimental results were verified in multiple ways. It was found that, for an office room using floor radiant cooling, the effect of the floor surface temperature on thermal comfort was about 16%, while the effect of indoor air temperature was about 84%, and relative humidity had little effect on thermal comfort. A simplified thermal comfort calculation model was proposed, which could be used as an indicator to adjust the floor surface and indoor air temperature, or could be used to calculate the PMV-PPD value. The findings have guiding significance for the design and control of FRC technology.

Indoor Environmental Quality and Occupant Comfort

“…They cover a diverse range of occupant types, including studies on the elderly [14], visually impaired individuals [15], and infants [16]. The examined architectural types and geographic locations also vary, including historical residents in Zanzibar [17], school buildings under both severely cold areas in China [18] and mild climate areas in Japan [16], and office buildings in North China and America [19]. These articles have investigated the impact of acoustic [15,20], lighting [14], and thermal [16][17][18][19] indoor environmental quality on comfort.…”