Evaluation of Thermal Comfort Inside an Office Equipped with a Fan Coil HVAC System: A CFD Approach

Abstract

Introduction Most industrialized countries, in particular the European Union countries, are in shifting phase from a fossilbased development to a sustainable development. Approximately 40% of the energy consumption in the European Union is attributed to buildings across the private and public sectors. The European Parliament Directive 2010/31 (The Directive 2010/31/EU) states that new buildings should consume very low amount of fossil-based energy (Nearly Zero Energy Buildings) by 2020. The Directive declares that all new buildings built after 31 December 2018 will have to be buildings with high energy performance and their required amount of energy should be mostly covered by renewable energy sources. Hence, energy efficiency has become a common target for all buildings, in particular historical buildings (Fotopoulou et al. 2018). Since buildings with historic value are less energy-efficient than modern ones, energy demand and indoor comfort expectations are critical challenges for them.

Numerical Analysis on the Optimisation of Thermal Comfort Levels in an Office Located inside a Historical Building

“…In this model, the air is considered a transparent medium, and all surfaces are assumed to be diffusive and grey. According to [18], the following values were considered for the emissivity of surfaces: 0.88, 0.89, 0.8, and 0.9 for the fan-coil box, window (glass), and walls, respectively. Boundary conditions of the third kind were applied at both the external walls and windows.…”

“…It is characterised by the presence of huge single-glazed glass windows that represent a critical component of the structure from a thermal point of view, due to their low thermal resistance and their low efficiency in filtering the sunlight. The methodology adopted for the study here presented is validated through a comparison with previous experimental measurement performed by [18]. In this previous study, Semprini et al [18] performed thermal-comfort analysis of the same office room in winter-heating conditions, concluding that the internal layout of working desks should be rearranged.…”

“…The methodology adopted for the study here presented is validated through a comparison with previous experimental measurement performed by [18]. In this previous study, Semprini et al [18] performed thermal-comfort analysis of the same office room in winter-heating conditions, concluding that the internal layout of working desks should be rearranged. In particular, enough space between the working desks and the windows should be given in order to satisfy local comfort.…”

Finite Volume Method Modeling of Heat Transfer in Acoustic Enclosure for Machinery

“…The simulation of airflow inside a wind tower model including the heat transfer devices was presented in [27]. Thermal comfort inside an office equipped with an HVAC system was evaluated with the use of the finite volume method in [28]. The application of aerogel in building isolation was investigated by means of CFD simulations and experimental research in [29].…”

Numerical Study on Indoor Environmental Quality in a Room Equipped with a Combined HRV and Radiator System

“…It solves the radiative transfer equation for a finite number of discrete solid angles, each associated with a vector direction fixed in the global Cartesian system. The solid surfaces are assumed to be diffusive and grey and values of the internal emissivity were selected similar to those employed in [21].…”