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humidity makes the office feels "stuffy". More important, it can contribute to the
development of bacterial and fungal growth (especially in sealed buildings).
Humidity lower then 50% causes discomfort by drying out the mucous
membranes, contributing to skin rashes, and causing some electrostatic
disturbances to both office equipment and their users.
Air velocities below 0.25 metres/second do not create any significant distraction
even in tasks requiring sustained attention.
Temperature
C
25
24
22
21
18
Thermal Comfort
The main influences, which affect human comfort, are:
1.
Temperature
2.
Air Movement
3.
Radiation
4.
Humidity
1. Temperature
Attempts have been made in the past to assess human comfort by considering
temperatures defined in certain ways.
The Mean Radiant Temperature is the mean temperature of a room due to surfaces
radiating heat into the room as if all the air is exhausted.
The Environmental Temperatures are the assumed temperatures inside (tei) and
assumed temperatures outside (teo) a building.
tei = 2/3 tr +
1/3 ta
where:
tr = mean radiant temperature
ta = air temperature (dry bulb)
EXAMPLE 1
If tr = 23oC and ta = 20oC
Then:
tei
/3 x 23
tei
15 1/3 +
tei
22oC
/3 x 20
6 2/3
The inside environmental temperature (tei) is a fairly good guide to comfort if there
are no unusual draughts or humidity conditions in a room.
Comfortable Temperature
Also clothing has to be considered. In winter time room occupants may wear
heavier clothes than in the summer and some accommodation of the seasons may be
necessary in deciding room conditions.
Another factor that should be considered is the age of the room occupants. Small
babies and elderly people require a higher room temperature, up to 24oC, to feel
comfortable.
Room design temperature should be carefully considered and the CIBSE guide has
an appropriate table to guide the engineer.
2. Air Movement
Large air movements in rooms can cause discomfort especially if the air is cold in
winter time. Cooler air tends to travel at floor level and can cause discomfort at the
ankles.
Very low levels of air movement can also cause a feeling of discomfort and
stuffiness in a room especially if the ceiling height is low and the dry bulb
temperature is too high in summer.
Air velocities between 0.10 m/s and 0.45 m/s are generally acceptable, but this
depends on conditions such as dry bulb temperature, humidity and clothing.
To allow for dry bulb temperature the graph below gives acceptable values for
comfort.
For general use in buildings where the air temperature is suitable a figure of 0.15
m/s can be used for acceptable air velocity.
Air velocities less than 0.10 m/s can cause a feeling of discomfort as can higher
values over 0.45 m/s at which draughts can result.
Less than 0.01 m/s results in stagnant conditions.
As a general rule higher values of air movement are more acceptable in summer
than in winter.
Older buildings tend to have areas such as cracks around doors and windows where
air can be admitted to the inside thus causing increases in overall air movement in
rooms. Modern buildings, on the other hand, can be so well sealed that little air
movement is the result. Badly designed ventilation systems can also be the cause of
high air velocities in rooms and care should be taken when designing air diffuser
systems with exit velocity and throw values.
Air movement can be measured with a hot wire anemometer to ascertain if comfort
is compromised.
3. Radiation
Radiation is completely independent of any intermediate medium and will occur just
as readily across a vacuum as across an air space.
The intensity of radiation varies with the square of the distance between the point of
origin and the receiving surface. In a room with four walls, a floor and a ceiling
there will always be an exchange of radiant heat energy if all the surfaces are at
different temperatures and different textures.
If radiant heating is used in a room then there will be an exchange of radiant energy
from the heater to the room surfaces and occupants. It is possible to feel
uncomfortable in a room with radiant heating, particularly if overhead heating
panels emit radiant heat downwards onto the head.
Similarly it is possible to feel uncomfortable if a room surface is cold and the body
radiates heat to that surface. This can happen when people occupy an unheated
building and the walls and other surfaces are cold. Even when the central heating
system has been on for a while the air temperature may be satisfactory but the
surfaces are still at a temperature much less than the air temperature, thus causing an
excessive radiant heat exchange from body to surfaces.
In general the dry bulb temperature should not exceed the mean radiant temperature
of the surroundings in summer. In winter the dry bulb temperature should be less
than the mean radiant temperature.
This means that in winter the mean radiant temperature should be higher than the
dry-bulb. In practice this is difficult to achieve since external walls and windows are
at a lower temperature than the air inside a room unless radiant panels are attached
to walls.
4. Humidity
Humidity is the amount of moisture in air.
This moisture is also known as water vapour.
Also the moisture in air can be regarded as low pressure steam.
Unlike the other measures of moisture, relative humidity the most familiar term
is not an absolute measure of moisture content. Rather, as its name suggest, it is a
measure only of the relative amount of moisture contained by air. More
specifically, it is the moisture content of the air relative to the maximum amount
of moisture which air at a given dry bulb temperature can hold when saturated.
If the weatherman says the relative humidity is 70 percent and the temperature is
23oC it means that the air contains 70 percent of the moisture it could possibly
hold at 23oC.
Relative humidity is not really considered to be of vital importance in human
comfort since body tolerances are quite wide. We cab tolerate a low humidity of
about 40%, but with lower values complaints are made of dry skin and dryness of
the eyes.
One effect of a considerable rise in humidity is that occupants feel a few degrees
warmer
than they really are if the air temperature is already quite high.
RH %
x 100
See Calculation of Air Properties section in the Properties of Air part of the Science
notes in this site.
Comfort Recommendations
lding /Room
ference /
rdrooms
llings rooms
llings rooms
llings stairs/landings
llings hen
Illuminanc
e
(lux)
22-23
1.1
1.0
23-25
1.1
0.65
F6-F7
300/500
26-27
1.2
0.25
26-27
1.2
0.25
15
G2-G4
(Extract)
100
0.4 to 1.0
AC/h to
G2-G4
17-19
0.9
2.5
23-25
0.9
1.2
19-24
1.8
0.75
21-25
1.8
0.65
100
17-19
1.6
1.0
21-23
1.6
0.65
60 l/s
G2-G4
(Extract)
300
0.4 to 1.0
AC/h to
control
moisture
G2-G4
100
llings - living
ms
22-23
1.1
1.0
23-25
0.9
1.2
llings - toilets
19-21
1.4
1.0
21-23
1.4
0.65
More than
5 Ac/h
G2-G4
ces - executive
21-23
1.2
0.85
22-24
1.2
0.7
F7
500
ces - general
ces open
21-23
1.2
0.85
22-24
1.2
0.7
F6-F7
500
21-23
1.2
0.85
22-24
1.2
0.7
F6-F7
500
22-24
1.1
0.9
24-25
1.1
0.65
F5-F7
50-200
aurants /
ng rooms
control
moisture
50-200
100
Notes on Table
Thermal Indices
Since there a quite a few comfort indicators, some more important than others,
many attempts have been made to devise indices which combine some or all of
these variables into one value which can be used to evaluate how comfortable
people feel.
The index that has been adopted by CIBSE is the Dry resultant Temperature.
Dry resultant temperature combines air and mean radiant temperatures into a
single index temperature, as follows:
Where;
tc
t ai
tr
The above equation is simplified at indoor air speeds below 0.1 m/s, as shown
below.
tc
Fanger's Research
0.5 t ai + 0.5 t r
These indices are more complicated than the Dry Resultant Temperature.
They combine the influence of air temperature, mean radiant temperature, air
movement and humidity with that of clothing and activity level into one value.
The PMV index may be defined as the mean value of the votes of a large group
of persons, exposed to the same environment with identical clothing and activity.
The predicted percentage dissatisfied (PPD) can be obtained from the PMV
using the following equation.
The graph below shows typical comfort zones for winter and summer.
The last factor is clothing. Clothing can obviously make you feel comfortable on a day
that is considered warm or cold. Clothes are added to counter the chill in the air. The
wind chill value is only relevant to exposed skin. There are variables the wind chill index
does not consider including direct sunlight and some assumptions in the wind chill
equation do not mirror reality perfectly. On a cold day it is best to dress in layers. The
goal is to maximize the heat between the skin and the clothes on a cold day. On a hot day,
white clothes and loose fitting clothes are the best. Everyone has a slightly different
temperature they consider being the "comfortable temperature". This range for any one
person tends to be from 68 to 78 F.
All the six factors mentioned go into determining how a person will feel. The
combination of all these factors is so complex that no formula using all these factors has
been developed. The two that are commonly used today by weathermen are the wind
chill and heat index. Wind chill considers wind and temperature while the heat index
considers heat and humidity. These two indices do not take into account several other
factors that determine how one will feel. The heat index does not consider wind and
direct sunlight.
In summary, when a person is outside, if you feel cold you can step into the sunlight,
reduce the wind, increase the temperature, increase the humidity, and increase clothing.
If you feel hot, you can step out of direct sunlight, increase the wind, decrease the
temperature, decrease the humidity and take off clothes. Off course, we can not control
all these variables that occur in the atmosphere except for three ways: (1) wear proper
clothing (2) go inside to a comfortable building (3) evaporational cooling through adding
water to the skin surface on a hot day.
Conduction
The Fourier equation may be used to assess the amount of heat transfer by
conduction.
The Fourier equation in this form is used for non-composite structures i.e. one
layer of thickness.
( k / l ) x A x T
Where;
Q
( 1 / R ) x A x T
Where;
Q
A x T / R
U . A . T
Uoverall . A . T
For more details of heat losses see Thermal Transmission section in Heating
notes.
Example 1
DATA
Average gas side hot surface temperature = 85 oC
Average water side temperature = 80oC
Thermal conductivity Steel (1% carbon) = 43 W/m K
Thermal conductivity Stainless steel 316 = 17 W/m K
Thermal conductivity Copper alloy 11000 = 388 W/m K.
Boiler wall thickness = 6mm
(k / l ) x A x T
Where;
( 43 / 0.006 ) x 0.6 x
( 7166.66 ) x 0.6 x
( 85 80 )
Q
(5)
( 2833.33 ) x 0.6 x
( 64,666.66 ) x 0.6 x
kW.
( 17 / 0.006 ) x
0.6 x ( 85 80 )
(5)
( 388 / 0.006 ) x
0.6 x ( 85 80 )
(5)
kW.