Indoor comfort in presence radiant exchanges with insolated glassed walls and local acclimatization to increase indoor comfort conditions

Abstract

The years '60 have been the starting point on an important R&D activity on the technologies for increasing the indoor comfort conditions. This activity produced related standards, such as ISO7730 an important technological research on domotics and different sensors for controlling indoor acclimatization parameters (temperature, humidity, air speed, etc.) at room level. They produced automatic controls and home automation systems allow managing and control acclimatization at room level. These technical solutions still present difficulties in managing the comfort conditions in large open-space office environments. The thermal uniformity problems are accentuated by the presence of large glassed surfaces. Such architectural conditions generate an uneven thermal distribution because of solar radiation that generates some consequent levels of localized discomfort. It is then evident that an effective optimization of the comfort conditions is much more important when we consider that this architectural design is often used in offices and other working environments. Different shading solutions have been studied with limited success. Previous research activities have introduced a new physical parameter defined as "local mean radiant temperature" that allows a better evaluation of comfort conditions inside large open space environments. This intuition produces an effective local acclimatization system, which grants an effective localized control of comfort conditions in large environments with large glassed surfaces. After an effective analysis of different methods for evaluating the comfort conditions according to actual standards, it evaluates the difference and the influence of the distance from the radiating surface. In conclusion, an effective solution for improving the thermal distribution This plant is realized by two fundamental subsystems: a Wi-Fi sensing subsystem that senses airspeed and temperature and an active conditioning system made by active reversible Peltier cells. The sensing system pilots the active local acclimatization inside the "open-space" environment. In this way, it increases the comfort conditions and the air quality with remarkable energy saving with respect to any traditional airconditioning plant. The nature of the Peltier cells produces the same effect of a micro heat pump that produces localized and punctual HVAC. An effective increase in comfort conditions has been evaluated by means of the traditional parameters, such as PMV and PPD in different conditions of work.