Measurement of air temperature using infrared thermography in

rooms equipped with UFAD systems in cold climate

Marianne Brub Dufour, B.Arch MaSc PhD student,
Concordia University;
mar_beru@alcor.concordia.ca
Dominique Derome, arch ing PhD,
Concordia University
Michel Tardif, ing,
Natural Ressources Canada
Radu Zmeureanu, ing PhD,
Concordia University
KEYWORDS: whole-field methods, thermography, UFAD.
SUMMARY:
UFAD systems for the cooling and the ventilation of rooms are increasingly used in new buildings. The
advantages of these systems are energy savings and high level of air quality while possible drawbacks concern
thermal comfort. To better understand the indoor environment produced by such systems, it is relevant to obtain
instantaneous and detailed mappings of the air conditions. To do so infrared thermography in combination with
a low mass screen has been used in laboratory for the visualization of whole temperature-field and measurement
studies of clear zones, close to swirl diffusers. This paper presents infrared thermography measurements taken
in situ. Located in Montreal, the building investigated is equipped with an underfloor air distribution system
operated in displacement mode. The method has been applied successfully to visualize and measure temperature
of air between bookshelves at the center of the building. However, in the offices at the periphery the
arrangement of the office furniture and diffusers, prensece of windows and heating systems make it more
challenging to visualize air flow and take accurate measurements.

1. Introduction
In the last 10 years, more and more buildings are designed with under floor air distribution (UFAD) systems for
the distribution of air within the rooms. UFAD systems are actually known to lead to energy savings and
excellent indoor air quality conditions compared to the conditions found in buildings with mixing ventilation
systems. The main drawback of the UFAD systems is the possibility for high vertical temperature gradient
and/or cold draft effects. To better understand the indoor environment produced by such systems, it is relevant to
obtain instantaneous and detailed mappings of conditions, i.e. temperature, velocity and pollutant concentration.
Unfortunately, traditional point measuring techniques give low resolution information and are time consuming.
For the visualization and measurement of whole temperature field in rooms, infrared thermography (IRT) in
combination with a low mass screen can be used. An IRT camera directed at a surface detects the emitted and
reflected thermal radiation, which wavelength range extends from 0.7 to 100 m in the electromagnetic
spectrum. Camera built-in calculation tools allow for taking into account the parameters involved in radionetric
measurements such as emissivity of the surface, surroundings temperature and distance. The resulting
thermogram is a thermal image of the surface. More commonly, infrared cameras are used in buildings to locate
thermal insulation discontinuities and air leakages throughout the building envelope during building energy
audits. As air has no solid surface, the concept of the measurement technique used in this paper is to install a
screen as the target across the field of interest, thus, becoming the support for visualization of the air
temperature. Hassini and Stetz (1994) introduced the technique and presented measurements of air temperature
of an air jet from a nozzle with an initial velocity of more than 1 m/s and about 15C below ambient. Also, using
the same technique, Cehlin et al (2000 and 2002) published measurements for an air jet from a low velocity

diffuser used for displacement ventilation systems. However, the technique presents drawbacks and the
following issues have to be controlled:

the screen introduced can disturb the flow;

the screen may not be at the same temperature as the air;

the infrared camera may not measure the exact surface temperature.

The purpose of the work presented in this paper is to show how this technique can be used to visualize and
measure air temperature in situ in stratification conditions. The paper addresses specifically the means to reduce
the impact of the 3 items listed above. The paper presents the experimental method developed and the
measurements obtained, and discusses the results.
Whole air temperature field measurements using IRT were carried out in January (average outside air
temperature -10C) in a large public library located in Montreal. The building includes the traditional
bookshelves areas, consultation areas of different geometries and administration areas. The floors of the sixstorey building are equipped with underfloor air distribution system (UFAD) operated in displacement mode. In
general, displacement systems produce stratified indoor climates. To ensure adequate fresh air to the occupants,
the UFAD systems use swirl floor-mounted diffusers to generate a zone of mixing conditions close to the floor.
The clear zones close to the diffusers and the occupants are critical for thermal comfort such displacement
ventilation conditions.

2. Description of the experiment method

The objective of this experiment is to visualize the temperature field resulting from airflow using IRT in rooms
with mixing and stratified conditions and to assess the accuracy of these air temperature measurements.
A long wave sensitive IRT camera designed for research purposes, ThermaCAM S60 developed by FLIR
Systems (FLIR Systems 2004), is used for the experiment. The camera has thermal resolution of 0.06C and a
spatial resolution of 1.3mRad. The accuracy specified by the manufacturer in the case of measurement without
reference is 2C for blackbody object in ambient condition. A proprietary software is used for the post
processing and data analysis (FLIR Systems 2003). For the sake of the qualititative study presented here, the
temperature scale of the thermograms is not added later. All the thermograms scales vary from 20 (dark purple)
to 25C (yellow).
A screen net, material normally used as mosquitos screen in windows, is selected as screen target for the
experiment. Cehlin et al (2000) found out that the use of a screen does not affect the velocity or the temperature
fields of airflow from low velocity diffusers in displacement. However, they recommended the use of a smooth
solid high emissivity screen like normal paper in order to avoid the creation of local perturbations. In fact,
Hassini and Stetz (1994) found that boundary layer thickness increase with the roughness of the paper screen.
For the case studied in this article, a porous screen is preferred to paper because of the rotating nature of the flow
produced by the swirl diffusers.
First, screens of various porosity and material emissivity have been tested. Table 1 shows the characteristics of
three porous screens: glass fiber covered with rubber, aluminum and rubber. The bulk emissivity is calculated
based on the emissivity of the mesh material, weighted by the porosity. Figure 1 shows thermograms of the three
different screens subjected to a similar hot air blow of a hair dryer. The rubber net with a lower porosity and
higher emissivity leads to the best detection of temperature, as verified by a thermocouple. This better result with
rubber is due to its higher emissivity which results in a higher amount of the radiation detected by the camera
that belongs to the object inspected. Thus, the accuracy of the temperature measured is higher with the rubber
screen.
Table 1 Porous screens tested
SCREEN

Porosity

Emissivity

Glass fiber

approx. 0.6

0.95 (rubber covered)

Aluminum

approx.0.6

0.2

Rubber

approx. 0.4

0.95

Rubber

Fiber glass

Aluminum

Figure 1 Thermograms of an air jet using screens made of different materials

Smoke visualization has been done also to assess the disturbance of the airflow by the rubber porous screen.
Figure 2 shows the smoke driven by the supplied air with and without the rubber screen. The airflow crosses the
screen. Some disturbance of the flow crossing the screen is observed as a thin film of smoke is stagnant at the
surface of the screen. The quantification of this disturbance will be studied further in a later part of the project.

Figure 2 Smoke visualization of an air jet from a swirl diffuse: Left without any screen, Right with a rubber
porous screen
In order to have an estimate of the accuracy of the air temperature using thermography, temperature
measurements were taken along a vertical at the center of the diffuser axis at 0.1 and 0.6 1.1 and 1.7 m. Figure 3
shows surface temperature profile obtained by infrared thermography and the air temperature measured using
RTDs at the corresponding locations. The temperature differences between are within 1C. This difference is
further discussed in section 4.

height (m)

1.5

0.5
screen temperature
air temperature
0
20

21

22

23

24

25

temperature (C)

Figure 3 Left Measurement set up, Right Air temperature and screen surface temperature
Two locations are used to investigate the possibilities of visualization of air temperature field: one in between
parallel sets of shelves in the center zone and one administration zone at the periphery. For each location,
1mx1m screens were installed to cover the height of the space and the cross section studied. A paper screen was
also installed behind the target screen to insure the most uniform background possible. Figure 4 shows a
schematic of the experimental set up. The ambient temperature and supply air temperature were measured using
thermocouples. A directional anemometer was used to estimate the velocity at the diffuser. The airflow was
measured using a balometer. The recorded thermograms are presented in the next section.
paper screen

target screen

swirl diffuser

Figure 4 Experimental set up

3. RESULTS
3.1 Location 1: Bookshelves
Bookshelves, as found traditionally in libraries, cover the center of the building floor. Their height is 1,8 m and
are 1,2 m apart. Floor diffusers are aligned in the center of the bookshelf corridor at a distance of 3m apart. The
ambient air conditions are presented in Table 2, and the spliced thermogram is presented in Figure 5 Left. The
temperature gradients along the height of the thermogram are found in the graph of Figure 5 Right. The expected

slow rate of change of the temperature across the height is clearly shown, as well as the more mixed conditions
found in the bottom part of the air space.
Table 2 Room and diffuser conditions Location 1
Ambiant air temperature

21.1 C

Supplied air temperature

19.4 C

Velocity at the diffuser

1.1 m/s

Airflow

30 cfm
3,00

2,75

2,50

2,25

2,00

Height (m)

1,75

1,50

1,25

1,00

0,75
0m
0,50
0.25 m
0,25
0.5 m
0,00
19,5 20,0 20,5 21,0 21,5 22,0 22,5 23,0 23,5
Temperature (C)

Figure 5 Left Thermal image of air jet from one swirl diffuser Right Temperature gradient along vertical in
between the book shelves lines at 0, 0.25 and 0.5m from the center of the diffuser

3.2 Location 2: Administration Office

The office space of the library is a classical open floor system using low partitions cubicles between the offices
of the library employees. The geometries of the offices vary greatly as well as the furniture layout. For this
study, an office space beside the exterior wall is chosen. The lower part of the wall is opaque and equipped with

an electric heating system and receives 0,8m from the floor a strip window of 1,2m high. Table 3 presents the air
conditions of the location. First, Figure 6 presents the flow out of two adjacent floor diffusers. Figure 7 shows
the thermal images of the air flow along the perimeter of the office, against the window.
Table 3 Room and diffuser conditions Location 2
Ambiant air temperature

24.3 C

Supplied air temperature

45 C
1.65 m/s

Velocity at the diffuser

Mean airflow

50 cfm

Temperature at heater

43 C

Figure 6 Right. Thermal image of air jet from two adjacent swirl diffusers in the office space. Left, Photo of the
set-up.

Figure 7 Left. Photo of set-up. Right, Thermal image of air airflow along a window above a wall heating unit.

0 sec

5 sec

10 sec

15 sec

20 sec

Figure 8 Sequence of thermal images recorded during the opening of a diffuser damper
Finally, Figure 8 shows the capacity of the method to capture change of air temperature versus time, with
thermgrams taken at frequency of 1Hz during the opening of the damper of the floor diffuser.

4. Discussion on measurement uncertainty measuring air temperature

using infrared camera
As mentioned above, the difference measured between the air and screen temperature was 1C maximum, as
presented in Figure 3. Another study looked at the range of temperature differences for different measurements
conditions. In this study, Cehlin et al (2002) used an energy balance between the surroundings and the screen.
They calculated the theoretical temperature differences between the screen and air temperature for airflow from
displacement ventilation diffusers in different conditions to be between 0.2 and 2.4 C. The smallest temperature
differences and errors were calculated when using a low emissivity screen as the radiative exchange between the
low emissity screen with the surroundings is minimized, compared to what would be with a high emissivity
screen. Thus, our measurements are within the calculated range. However, good thermographic data analysis
should always include the estimation of the error. The error in our study and in the study of Cehlin et al (2002)
are compared next.
When using an IRT camera in the field, the magnitude of the error can increase significantly because of the error
in estimating the parameters involved in the radiometric measurements and because a reference temperature is
not usually included in the field of view. The accuracy of the camera is equal to the the sum of the partial errors
of each parameter of the radiometry equation (hman 2001). The total accuracy on temperature measurement is
calculated with:
2

T
T

T
T
Ts
(2)
T = s + s Tr + s +
Tamb + s Ttot

Tr
Tamb

Ttot

where is the emissivity of the object; the transmissivity of the atmosphere; Ts, is the surface temperature [K];
Tr and Tamb, are the reflected temperature and ambient temperature [K]; and Ttot, the equivalent black body
temperature of the total radiation that reaches the detector of the camera [K]. For the calculation of the actual
error on temperature measurement, it was first assumed that there is no error in the calculation of transmittance
of ambient air. The infrared camera automatically computes this transmittance by using the distance and the
ambient temperature. This assumption was acceptable because the atmosphere transmittance was equal to unity
for the distance and condition tested. An error of 0.2 was assumed for the emissivity. The error on ambient
temperature was equal to the thermocouple error of 0.5C. For the reflected temperature the error assumed was
5C because of the non uniformity of the background. No reference emitter was used for the measurement.

Therefore using Equation 2, the accuracy for a non-blackbody in the conditions of this experiment has been
estimated to be 3.79C. This error has to be taken into account when analyzing the results shown in Figure 3.
Thus, the differences smaller to 1C observed between air temperature measured using RTD and screen
temperature measured using an IRT camera show a difference 1C 3.79C. This error is entirely the result of
the use of the infrared camera.
In their calculation for the range of temperature difference to be expected between the screen and the air, Cehlin
et al (2002) estimates the error of the calculation resulting from the expected errors of the measurements to be
included in the energy balance calculation. The combined error estimated is 1C, for the theoretical difference
between the screen and the air temperature calculated using an energy balance between the surroundings and the
screen. This calculation includes an error of the surface temperature measurements of 0.3C, which reflects
infrared measurements done in controlled laboratory conditions. It seems that further investigation to more
accurately reflects the error of in situ measurements is needed.

5. Conclusion
A method using an infrared camera and a target screen to measure air temperature has been adapted and tested
for the study of temperature fields close to swirl diffusers in displacement ventilation conditions. Smoke tests
have shown that the use of a porous screen allows for the airflow from a swirl diffuser to develop. However,
certain disturbances have been qualitatively observed. The comparison with RTD and air temperature have
shown that the air temperature is well estimated measuring the temperature of a porous screen: the differences
smaller to 1C between air temperature measured using thermocouples and screen temperature measured with an
IRT camera. An energy balance would have to be used to precisely estimate the air temperature. The accuracy of
the IRT camera measurement in field conditions would have to be taken into account in the estimation of the
temperature and its accuracy.
The method has been applied successfully to visualize and take good measure temperature of air between
bookshelves at the center of the building. However, in the offices at the periphery the arrangement of the office
furniture and diffusers, prensece of windows and heating systems make it more challenging to visualize air flow
at perimeter and take accurate measurements. Transient thermal events, such as the developpement of the air jet
due to the opening of one diffuser damper, have been recorded successfully.
Further investigations on the effect of the porous screen on the airflow have to be carried out. CFD modeling
validated with measurement in laboratory could be used. A parametric study on the effects of the conditions on
the difference between the screen and air temperature has to be undertaken taking into account the error on the
screen temperature measurement with the infrared camera. High resolution calculation of thermal comfort
indicators, such as feet-to-head temperature difference, at different positions in the cross sections studied could
be done for the different spaces studied based on the air temperature measurement obtained.

6. References
Hassani,Vahab A.; Stetz,Mark (1994) Application of infrared thermography to room air temperature
measurements, Proceedings of the ASHRAE Annual Meeting, Vol 100 Issue 2., Orlando, FL, USA, p.
1238-1247.
Cehlin,M.; Moshfegh,B.; Sandberg, M. (2000) Visualization and measurment of air temperature using infrared
thermography, Proceedings of the ROOMVENT, Vol.1, Oxford, p.339.347.
Cehlin,M.; Moshfegh,B.; Sandberg,M. (2002) Measurements of air temperatures close to a low-velocity diffuser
in displacement ventilation using an infrared camera, Energy and Buildings, Vol 34. Issue 7, Amsterdam,
p.687-698.
FLIR Systems. 2004. ThermaCAM S60 Operators manual, Danderyd, 174 p.
FLIR Systems. 2003. ThermaCAM Researcher Users manual, Danderyd, 136 p.
hman, C. 2001. Measurement in Thermography, Danderyd, 119 p.