Thermal Comfort and Energy Efficiency on Air-Conditioned University Classrooms by means of CFD-Simulation

Abstract

This paper proposed a method to forecast thermal comfort conditions and energy efficiently in air-conditioned classrooms. Room comfort parameters such as temperature and wind speed are simulated using the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tool. To evaluate the results, we used objective measurements, CFD modeling, and subjective assessment. The results from the field measurements compared and contrasted the predicted values by the survey. The predicted results show the reasonable distribution of airflow characteristics, temperature gradients, and these characteristics are consistent with experimental measurements which are within the limits of the thermal comfort standards. The neutral temperature which was found from the questionnaires was 29.2oC with 52.4% of the students feeling comfortable at the neutral level. In addition, recommendations have been made to improve thermal comfort conditions and reduce the accumulation of carbon dioxide concentrations in classrooms.

Keywords

• thermal comfort
• energy efficiency
• cfd simulation
• pmv
• tsv
• air-conditioned classrooms