Comfort and Health- Indoor

Environmental Quality
Comfort involves: control of temperature, humidity, air motion, and
radiant sources interacting with the occupants
Not everyone can be made comfortable by one set of conditions
Oder, dust, noise, and vibration are additional human comfort factors
Nonenvironmental factors such as dress and the activity level of
occupants must be considered
A well-designed HVAC system manages to keep these variables
within specified limits set by customer, building codes, and good
engineering judgment
Engineers are challenged to utilize all of the available information and
tools to design systems that provide a comfortable environment

Comfort-PHYSIOLOGICAL consideration
The amount of heat generated and dissipated by the human body varies
considerably with activity, age, size, and gender
The body has a complex regulating system acting to maintain the deep
body temperature of about 98.6 f (36.9 C)

Thermal balance with environment = comfortable

ANSI/ASHRAE standard 55-1992 specifies the thermal Environmental
Conditions for Human Occupancy as conditions in which 80% or more

of the occupants will find the environment thermally acceptable.

Comfort-PHYSIOLOGICAL consideration
The environmental factors that affects thermal comfort are:
The dry bulb temperature of the surrounding air
The humidity of the surrounding air
The relative velocity of the surrounding air
The temperature of any surfaces that can directly view any part of

the body and thus exchange radiation

The personal variables that influence thermal comfort are activity and

clothing
Animal and human body temperatures are controlled by a heat balance
that involves metabolism, blood circulation near the surface of the skin,

respiration, and heat and mass transfer from the skin

Comfort-PHYSIOLOGICAL consideration
The energy generated by a persons metabolism varies with activity
Met is a unit to express the the metabolic rate per unit of body surface
area 1 met = 18.4 Btu/(hr-ft2) (58.2 w/m2)
The average adult is assumed to have an effective surface area for heat
transfer of 19.6 ft2 (1.82 m2) and will dissipate approximately 360 Btu/hr

(106 W)
Clothing insulation is described as a single equivalent uniform layer
over the whole body
Clo is a unit for clothing insulation 1 clo = 0.88 (F-ft2-hr)/Btu [0.155 (m2-

C)/W]
A heavy two-piece business suit with accessories has an insulation
value of about 1 clo, whereas a pair of shorts has about 0.05 clo

Environmental comfort indices

Temperature: is easily measured as air or dry bulb temperature
Humidity: can be described, for a given pressure and dry bulb
temperature
Air motion: can be determined from measurement or predicted from
theories of fluid mechanics
Radiant exchange: between person and surroundings
Surroundings do not surround a person but occur on one or two
sides
Computation involves the angle factor or configuration factor

The basic index used to describe the radiative conditions in space is

the mean radiant temperature

Environmental comfort indices

Vernons globe thermometer is the most common instrument used to
determine the mean radiant temperature
The mean radiant temperature can calculated as:

Environmental comfort indices

Other indices have been developed to simplify description of the
thermal environment and to take in account the combined effects of two
or more factors
The Effective Temperature: is the temperature of an environment at 50%
relative humidity that results in the same total heat loss from the skin as
in the actual environment. It combines the humidity and the temperature
into single index
The Operative Temperature: is the average of the mean radiant and
ambient air temperature
The humid Operative temperature: is the temperature of a uniform
environment at 100% relative humidity in which a person loses the same
total amount of heat from the skin as in the actual environment

Environmental comfort indices

The Heat Stress Index: is the ratio of the total evaporative heat loss
required for thermal equilibrium to the maximum evaporative heat loss
possible for the environment, multiplied by 100, for steady-state
conditions, and with the skin temperature held constant at 95 F
The Wet Bulb Globe Temperature:

Environmental comfort indices

comfort conditions
ASHRAE sensation Scale

comfort conditions

comfort conditions

comfort conditions

comfort conditions

comfort conditions

The basic concern of iaq

Common contaminants
Carbon Dioxide CO2
Carbon Monoxide (Co)
Sulfur oxides
Nitrous oxides
Radon
Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)
Mycotoxins (Mold Poisons)
Particulate Matter

METHODS TO CONTROL HUMIDITY

Humidity is a significant parameter in comfort

Low relative humidity and the dry effect on nose and bronchial linings leads to
increased incidence of disease
High relative humidity encourages condensation and growth of harmful matter
such as mold
Indoor air relative humidity must be kept around 50%
Moisture must be removed (dehumidification) when cooling and added
(humidification) when heating
The condensed liquid should not be blown into the supply duct

METHODS TO CONTROL HUMIDITY

Methods to control humidity:
Lower the supply temperature low enough to remove the required amount of
moisture and then reheat that air back to a temperature required to meet the
space cooling load

Reduce fan speed (reduce air flow) or bypass some of air around the coil
Use surface or liquid desiccants to remove water chemically from humid
makeup or recirculated air. Desiccants are particularly useful in HVAC systems
where:

When heating steam should be injected in air stream rather than spraying water

METHODS TO CONTROL contaminants

Four methods to control gaseous or particulate contaminants and maintain good IAQ:
Source elimination or modification
Use of outdoor air
Space air distribution
Air cleaning

sources Elimination or modification

The most effective method for reducing contaminant- operates directly on the source
this method specifies exactly what building materials and furnishings are to be
allowed in the buildings
Design and construction should be such that water can not condense or leak into the
building
Elimination of smoking within the building
No paints, solvents, cleaners, and volatile compounds within the building or near the
outdoor intake
Cleanup of mold and fungus

use of outdoor air

Outdoor air is use dilute
contaminants within a space
Supply air is the air delivered to the
conditioned
Ventilation air is the portion of
supply air that is outdoor air plus
any recirculated air that has been
treated for the purpose of maintain
acceptable IAQ
Makeup air is outdoor air supplied
to replace exhaust air and
exfiltration
Infiltration and exfiltration air

use of outdoor air

The contaminant concentration in space can be calculated as

use of outdoor air

use of outdoor air

Occupied Zone is the region within
an occupied space between the
floor and 72 inch (1800mm) above
the floor and more than 2 ft (600
mm) from the wall or fixed air
conditioning equipment
Occupied Zone must be maintained
at a nearly uniform condition.
Some fraction S of the supply air
bypasses and does not enter the
occupied zone

Effectiveness Eoa is the fraction of

outdoor air entering the system

use of outdoor air

use of outdoor air

Indoor Air quality procedure

Indoor Air quality procedure

Indoor Air quality procedure

filtering: particulate removal

filtering: particulate removal

Efficiency measures the ability of the air cleaner
to remove particulate matter from an airstream
(Fig 4-8)
The smaller particles are the most difficult to
filter
The air-flow resistance is the loss in total
pressure at a given flow rate
Air flow resistance is an important factor in
operating costs for the system since it is directly
related to fan energy requirements
The pressure loss at any required rate of flow Q
can be determined by
Where the subscript r stands for rated conditions

filtering: particulate removal

filtering: particulate removal

filtering: particulate removal

filtering: particulate removal

filtering: particulate removal

filtering: particulate removal