A Study on the Status and Thermal Environment Improvement of Ceiling-Embedded Indoor Cooling and Heating Unit

Miae Seong, Cheolsoo Lim, Jaehyun Lim and Jaewan Park
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Miae Seong: Climate and Air Quality Research Department, National Institute of Environmental Research, Incheon 22689, Korea
Cheolsoo Lim: Climate and Air Quality Research Department, National Institute of Environmental Research, Incheon 22689, Korea
Jaehyun Lim: Climate and Air Quality Research Department, National Institute of Environmental Research, Incheon 22689, Korea
Jaewan Park: Research and Development Office, TES Eng, Daejeon 35245, Korea

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 19, 1-21

Abstract: In this study, a basic study was performed to analyze the seasonal temperature status of a research room in the Global Environment Research Building, where ceiling-embedded indoor units are installed to study the room temperature status of the building, as well as to improve its thermal environment. In addition, a direction for improvement of the indoor thermal environment in the winter was proposed through a CFD (computational fluid dynamics) simulation and was proven by an additional experiment. Through the results of this study, it appeared that if the ceiling-embedded indoor unit was installed in the small indoor space without considering the thermal vulnerability of its perimeter boundary, the air temperature of the upper part was greatly different from that of the bottom part in the winter. Based on the PMV measurement result, the case that used both FCUs and convectors showed 1.33, the biggest maximum and minimum difference, and the case that used all FCUs, convectors and circulating fans showed 0.68, the smallest maximum and minimum difference. Therefore, it was considered that the operating method suggested in the room used in this study would improve not only the temperature stratification but also the thermal comfort. Hence, in this study, as a means to improve the stratification, convectors were installed to minimize the effect of the external thermal environment, and angle-controllable air flowing fans were installed to mitigate the stratification distribution. With such a result, it was intended to present essential data for the improvement of the thermal environment, as well as the conservation of heating energy in the winter, by reviewing the use of the ceiling-embedded indoor units in the future.

Keywords: indoor unit; temperature stratification; predicted mean vote; heating and computational fluid dynamics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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