Available online at www.sciencedirect.

com

ScienceDirect
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
Procedia Engineering 00 (2017) 000–000

ScienceDirect www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia
Procedia Engineering 205 (2017) 3316–3322

10th International Symposium on Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning, ISHVAC2017, 19-
22 October 2017, Jinan, China

A Study on Air Distribution and Comfort of Atrium

with Radiant Floor Heating
Guangming Chua,b,*,Yanghong Suna,Tong Jinga,Yan Sunc,Yongli Suna
a
Department of Building Environment and Energy Application Engineering, Shandong Jianzhu University, Jinan, China 250101
Department of Building Environment and Energy Application Engineering, Shandong Jianzhu University, Jinan, China 250101
b
Key Laboratory of Renewable Energy Utilization Technologies in Building of the State Ministry of Education, Shandong Jianzhu University,
Key Laboratory of Renewable Energy Utilization Technologies in Building of the State Ministry of Education, Shandong Jianzhu University,
Jinan, China 250101
c
Shandong Yiyou Electromechanical Company,Jinan,China 250101
Shandong Yiyou Electromechanical Company,Jinan,China 250101

Abstract

This paper takes an atrium as the object of study, according to the design parameters of the space size and air conditioning, the
model of stratified air conditioning is established. It used FLUENT to simulate the air flow structure and thermal comfort of the
stratified air conditioning under the winter heating condition, and the results were analyzed. The results show that setting the
radiant floor heating is beneficial to control the heat convection and the vertical temperature gradient can be effectively reduced.
Therefore, the effect of winter stratified air conditioning can be achieved. From the view of comfort, the middle air supply is
better than the two side air supply.
© 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
© 2017 The Authors.
Peer-review Published by
under responsibility of Elsevier Ltd. committee of the 10th International Symposium on Heating, Ventilation and Air
the scientific
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 10th International Symposium on Heating, Ventilation and
Conditioning.
Air Conditioning.
Keywords: Atrium ; Stratified air conditioning; Radiant floor heating; Thermal comfort

1. Introduction

The atrium is a large space formed by a variety of functions. It usually through multiple floors and indirectly or
directly through with each floor. In the atrium, we can enjoy the indoor air quality, and can feel the outdoor space
and the natural environment. With the development of our city construction, atrium buildings appear constantly,
such as shopping malls, hotels, office buildings, teaching buildings, libraries and so on. As the core of the building,

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +86-135-0641-9275.

E-mail address: chu3080@sina.com

1877-7058 © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 10th International Symposium on Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning.

1877-7058 © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 10th International Symposium on Heating, Ventilation and
Air Conditioning.
10.1016/j.proeng.2017.10.345
 Guangming Chu et al. / Procedia Engineering 205 (2017) 3316–3322 3317
2 Guangming Chu et al. / Procedia Engineering 00 (2017) 000–000

the atrium is becoming more and more popular, and more and more attention has been paid to the study of air
conditioning in large space. The atrium in high building height reached tens meters to hundreds meters, the large
volume of space, many internal and external disturbance, the big load, the complex air distribution, resulted the large
power consumption, and a great waste of energy.
Considered from two aspects guarantee human comfort and air conditioning energy saving, large space usually
uses"stratified air conditioning"separated the space into two parts, only uses the air conditioning on the lower part of
the work area, the upper region only excludes hot air by ventilation, and achieve the purpose of saving energy.
According to statistics, this kind of air conditioning can save about 15%~40% of summer cooling capacity compared
with the whole room air conditioner, while the energy consumption in winter is greatly affected by the system form.
Atrium adjusts the indoor climate environment through "greenhouse effect" and "chimney effect". The influence of
greenhouse on atrium is two-sided, plays a positive role in winter, and plays a negative role in summer. But chimney
effect is opposite.Proper use of these two effects can effectively save energy consumption of air-conditioning,
otherwise, it will not only increase the energy consumption of air-conditioning, but also difficult to guarantee the
effect of air conditioning.
According to statistics, in 90s the last century Chinese building energy consumption only accounted for 16% of
the total social energy consumption, and in recent years Chinese building energy consumption has reached more than
30%, of which the energy consumption of HVAC energy consumption accounted for about 50%. Atrium as a large
space building has great potential for energy saving in ventilation, indoor climate change and so on.

2. Stratified air conditioning for large atrium in winter

2.1. Characteristics of large atrium air conditioning load

In recent years, more and more large public buildings appeared. With the increase of building volume, in order to
ensure this type of buildings’ good use, it usually adopts enclosed large atrium. Because of the large space, the other
parts of the area will produce uneven temperature distribution in the horizontal and vertical directions. How to
effectively eliminate or reduce the accumulation of heat, reduce the influence to the air conditioning area, ensure
thermal comfort, and also to maximize energy saving, is a problem of tall atrium.
The upper part of the large space nonworking area had a large load of hot and cold, especially in winter, because
the buoyancy of the hot air, the entire space lower cold heat, most of the heat consumption in the large space of the
upper and lower work area, so the heating effect is difficult to guarantee. Considered of the conservation of energy,
meet the thermal comfort, air conditioning system ’s investment and operation cost considerations, in the large space
air conditioning mode is widely used stratified air conditioning, only the lower work area of large space air
conditioning parameters meet the design requirement.
This paper started from the velocity field and temperature field, analyzed the air distribution combined with the
ground radiation heating , PPD and PMV distribution in the large atrium of the air conditioning , and discussed the
method of stratified air conditioning in the large atrium in winter.
Stratified air conditioning generally use the central air supply, the lower return air flow organization, the air
supply height as the stratification surface, the space above the stratification surface is called non air conditioning
area, referred to as the upper zone; The space below the stratified surface is called the air conditioning zone, referred
to as the lower area. Therefore, the heat gain and air conditioning load must be calculated according to the upper and
lower two areas, that is, to calculate the ventilation heat load in the non air conditioning area, and calculate the air
conditioning heat and cold load in the air conditioning area. On the stratified surface, due to the inductive
entrainment of the air jet into the upper air, a part of the heat in the non air conditioning area will be forced to
transfer to the air conditioning zone, thus becoming the instantaneous air conditioning load.In addition, due to the
surface temperature of non air conditioning area’s enclosure structure higher than the surface temperature of air
conditioning in the region, and between the two areas will produce radiation heat exchange, because of the heat
accumulation wall structure and the floor, after the air conditioning area receive the heat radiation, there will be a
part of the release to indoor air conditioned zones become instantaneous cooling load (the rest is then released or
passed into other spaces). Therefore, in addition to calculating the cooling load caused by the heat of the air
3318 Guangming Chu et al. / Procedia Engineering 205 (2017) 3316–3322
Guangming Chu et al. / Procedia Engineering 00 (2017) 000–000 3

conditioning zone, the load of the stratified air conditioning must calculate the convective heat transfer load and the
radiant heat load.

2.2. Influencing factors of stratified air conditioning

It is easy to satisfy the design temperature of air conditioned area by air supply and cooling in large space during
the summer. But the effect of hot air conditioning in winter is difficult to guarantee. The air conditioning combined
with air supply and radiant floor heating can compensate for the deficiencies mentioned above. Under winter
weather conditions, whether set up floor heating and what kind of air supply is used have a great influence on air
distribution, the following analysis are about various factors.

2.2.1. The radiant floor heating

A room with radiant floor heating, the heat produced through radiation can reach 50% of the total heat, mainly
concentrated in the area of human activities, the indoor temperature is relatively stable, and the temperature field
distribution is more uniform, ineffective heat loss less, energy saving effect is better.In the vertical direction, the air
temperature in the room more than 50cm above the ground changes very small, and the body has no obvious sense of
blowing. At the same time, because of the floor with high heat inertia, the thermal stability of the indoor
environment is improved, and the indoor temperature is changed little during the intermittent heating, and this
method does not occupy the building space. Under the same conditions, when the structure of the building is the
same, the indoor temperature of floor heating is 2~3 lower than the ordinary heating system.

2.2.2. Air supply modes

The most common types of air distribution in large space stratified air conditioning systems are: single side
middle delivery, the same side lower return;single side middle delivery, the other side lower return; two side middle
delivery, lower return; two side middle delivery, upper and lower return, and so on.
Single side middle delivery, the same side lower return refers to the way of air outlet arranged on the side wall,
located in the non air conditioning area and air conditioning boundaries, the cold air (or hot air) by air outlet sent out,
undertake indoor air conditioning load, then discharged by return air inlet set on the same side of the lower part of
the wall. Through this way of air supply, the indoor work area will form a larger spiral reflux, sometimes a part of
the air supply is discharged directly from the air return tank without passing through the work area, form air short
circuit, results in indoor requirements can not meet the comfort, needs large air volume, and high energy
consumption.
Single side middle delivery, the other side lower return is the outlet arranged on the side wall of non air
conditioning area and air conditioning boundaries, the cold air(or hot air) sent out by the side wall outlet, the airflow
drops into the work area with a jet attenuation curve, and then discharged by the opposite side wall outlet arranged at
the lower part. This mode can form air retention zone at the lower corner of the delivery air. Therefore, it can affect
the air quality and the comfort of the work area. So it usually used in spaces with smaller spans.
Two side middle delivery, lower return is both sides of the wall are equipped with air supply, cold air (or hot air)
is sent by the air outlet of both sides lower wall. The treated air is injected into the relatively stationary space
through the spout to form a jet,when the shot reaches the desired range, its temperature and velocity are sufficiently
attenuated, and the air flows back, most of the air is the circulation air indoor to supplement the jet. Thus under the
action of the air jet, the temperature and velocity fields are evenly distributed in the whole air conditioning area.
Because there is no parameter requirement of non air conditioning, it allows a larger vertical temperature difference.
Two side middle delivery, upper and lower return is used more widely in large space. For large space, the air supply
is often very large, the temperature difference is relatively large, so the big space divided into two parts is reasonable.
Generally, the lower part is regarded as an air conditioned area, and the upper part is regarded as a non air
conditioned area.In large space building, because of the large span, the air outlet is often far away from the movable
area, so the use of the nozzle lateral supply can make full use of this characteristic. The nozzle has a long jet flow
 Guangming Chu et al. / Procedia Engineering 205 (2017) 3316–3322 3319
4 Guangming Chu et al. / Procedia Engineering 00 (2017) 000–000

and the moving area is usually in recirculation zone with a uniform temperature. There are some shortcomings in this
way, such as large temperature difference of air supply and long jet flow, which may cause cold air fall or hot air
rising. Combined with the study object of this paper, the middle air supply and the lower return is adopted, and we
can set up rooftop ventilation when necessary.

2.2.3. Air supply angle

For summer operation conditions, due to the sinking of cold jet and the angle of air supply, the influence of indoor
air distribution characteristics is not very large. As long as the air supply height is reasonable, the horizontal side air
supply mode can generally achieve the requirements of stratified air conditioning. But for winter conditions, because
of the hot jet rising, if the air supply angle is not reasonable, most of the air jet will drift to the non working area. As
the air supply angle increases (downward), the draft heat jet can reach to the working area, and the heat of the hot jet
drift to the non air conditioning zone decreases, and the average temperature of the air conditioning area increases.
But if the angle of air supply is too large, the near wall velocity increases, the convection of air jet and wall
strengthen, a part of air jet directly into the working area, the thermal jet could not reach to a large area of atrium ,
There will be local overheating or local Over-cooling phenomenon in the working area .

3 .The model and boundary conditions

The object of this study is a hotel atrium, and the airflow structure and thermal comfort of stratified air
conditioning in winter are analyzed by simulation.

3.1. Simplified model

The size of the atrium is 36m ×21m ×18m, all sides are interior walls of the guest rooms and the roof is made of
glass.

3.2 .Boundary Conditions

3.2.1. Wall boundary

In the large space, the actual heat transfer process of the enclosure structure is very complex, and the heat
conduction, convection and radiation usually exist at the same time. It is very difficult to simulate the actual heat
transfer process completely. Therefore, it is necessary to simplify the actual heat transfer in the building. The vertical
direction of the large space building has obvious temperature gradient, so we can use the way of one room two
temperatures,one room three temperatures or more temperatures to solve this problem. The solid wall also has a
temperature gradient in the vertical direction. In this paper, taking the air outlet height as the boundary , we set air
conditioning area temperature and non air conditioning area temperature in the height direction.
The inner walls around the atrium, and the roof of the court is a glass screen.The outer surface of the court roof is
simultaneously subjected to solar radiation and outdoor air temperature. In order to facilitate calculation,
comprehensive heat calculation is used to calculate the heat transfer of the enclosure structures in accordance with
the local winter conditions. The wall load is set at constant wall temperature, the wall temperature is the ambient
temperature, and the glass top is set at constant heat flux boundary. Specific parameters are: the internal wall and
ground temperature is 20℃,the heat flux of the roof is -25W/m2. When the ground radiant heating is combined with
stratified air conditioning, the radiant thermal boundary condition is adopted in the ground radiant heating system,
and the wall temperature is 26℃. In the near wall area, we used wall function method to consider the boundary
conditions.

3.2.2. The import boundary

3320 Guangming Chu et al. / Procedia Engineering 205 (2017) 3316–3322
Guangming Chu et al. / Procedia Engineering 00 (2017) 000–000 5

The air outlet is set as an inlet boundary, and the turbulent flow energy at the entrance of the jet is k = 0.08, and
the turbulent energy dissipation is ε= 0.21.

3.2.3. The exit boundary

The return air outlet is set as the exit boundary.

4. Analysis of air flow organization simulation

The tall atrium uses a compound air conditioning system of floor radiant heating and air conditioning ventilation,
not only solves the work area at the lower temperature in winter, but also avoids indoor air humidity and fresh air
can not meet the requirements caused by radiant heating. In this paper, the thermal load of building envelope is
assumed by ground radiant heating, and the indoor humidity and fresh air is assumed by the air supply system. The
case 1 and 2 are simulated under the compound air conditioning mode, and the air supply parameters are shown in
Table 1.

Table1 .The air supply parameters under case 1 and case 2.

Case Air supply form Wall Air supply angle Air supply rate
temperature(℃） （°） (m/s）

1 Bilateral air supply 26 30 4

2 Intermediate air 26 30 4.6

supply

4.1. Analysis of temperature field and velocity field

From the velocity field distribution ,we can see:under the case1 and the case2, below 2m of the vertical height at
the active area, the air flow rate remained below 0.2m/s, the wind speed meet the design requirements, no sense of
blowing in winter. For the case 1, when the air flow from the air vent is blown out, the attenuation is obvious, and in
the middle zone near the ground of the atrium, the hot air rise and constantly involved in the new air, and form a
vortex in the middle area. For the case 2, on the flow path of the air outlet, the end of the air supply is upturned,
forming a vortex, and there is a floating hot air flow in the middle of the air, but compared with the case 1, the
center height of the heat flow is slightly higher.

4.2. Vertical temperature distribution of typical locations

For the case1 and case 2, the vertical temperature distribution of typical location is shown in Fig 1 and Fig 2.

Fig. 1. Vertical temperature distribution of case 1 Fig. 2. vertical temperature distribution of case 2
 Guangming Chu et al. / Procedia Engineering 205 (2017) 3316–3322 3321
6 Guangming Chu et al. / Procedia Engineering 00 (2017) 000–000

It can be seen from the vertical temperature distribution Fig:under the two conditions, the average temperature in
the air conditioning area is higher than the designed temperature 20 ℃. For case 1, the average temperature of the
active area is about 21.8℃, the heating temperature is higher than the single air conditioning in winter. For case 2,
the average temperature of the active area is about 21℃, and the temperature distribution in the human activities
area is even. After the introduction of ground radiant heating, the temperature near the ground is generally higher
than ordinary air conditioning heating in winter, and the temperature gradient in the vertical direction is also smaller.
At the same time, because the air supply temperature is lower than the ordinary air conditioning air supply
temperature, it also weakens the "chimney effect" in the atrium.

4.3. PPD and PMV distribution at vertical height of typical locations

It can be seen from the simulation results: under the case 1, the PPD distribution of the active area is small in the
middle and big in both sides, and the middle PPD index is around 10%, and the PPD is close to 21% on both sides,
as shown in Fig 3;In case 2 , most of air conditioning area’s PPD between 11% to 18%, only individual regions
reached 24%, but this is not more than grade II comfort PPD (≤27%), as shown in Fig 4.
It can be seen from the simulation results:under the case 1, the PMV of the work area is kept between +0.44 and
+0.75, as shown in Fig 5, and is adapted to the PPD distribution, which is related to the temperature field and the
velocity field ; Under the case 2, the PMV of the work area is mostly between +0.55 and +0.85, as shown in Fig 6,
people feel a little warm and it meets the comfort requirements. After setting up ground radiant heating, the
temperature near the ground is increased, the temperature gradient in the vertical direction is reduced, and the
comfort is improved.

20 21
19 20 (1,Y,-10.5)
(1,Y,-10.5)
18 (9,Y,-10.5)
(9,Y,-10.5) 19
(18,Y,-10.5)
17 (18,Y,-10.5) 18
16
17
15
16
PPD

PPD

14
15
13
14
12
13
11
12
10
11
9
10
8
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18
height (m) height (m)

Fig. 3 PPD distribution diagram at vertical height of case 1 Fig. 4 PPD distribution diagram at vertical height of case
2

0 .9 0
0 .8 5 (1,Y ,-10.5 )
0 .8 5 (9,Y ,-10.5 )
0 .8 0 (1,Y ,-10.5)

(18 ,Y ,-10 .5)
(9,Y ,-10.5) 0 .8 0
0 .7 5
(18,Y ,-10.5)
0 .7 5
0 .7 0
0 .7 0
0 .6 5
PMV

PMV

0 .6 5
0 .6 0

0 .5 5 0 .6 0

0 .5 0 0 .5 5

0 .4 5 0 .5 0

0 .4 0 0 .4 5
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18

height (m ) h eight (m )

Fig. 5 PMV distribution diagram at vertical height of case 1 Fig. 6 PMV distribution diagram at vertical height of case
1
3322 Guangming Chu et al. / Procedia Engineering 205 (2017) 3316–3322
Guangming Chu et al. / Procedia Engineering 00 (2017) 000–000 7

It can be seen from Fig 3~6, two cases of the PPD decreased first and then increased with height, indicates that
the body dissatisfaction rate in the air conditioning area is small, in the non air conditioning area is big, but the
height of turning is different, case 2 is higher than case 1. By the PMV fitting curves we can see that the vertical
temperature gradient of the whole space is not changed, and the air conditioning area can meet the requirements of
comfort.

5. Conclusion

The air distribution of stratified air conditioning in large space is simulated by FLUENT. this paper studied and
analyzed the air distribution in the whole space with a combination of floor heating and air supply mode in winter.
According to the velocity field, temperature field, the comparative analysis of PPD and PMV, we can see that the
vertical temperatures gradient in the atrium under two air supply modes are small after using the ground radiation
heating, the work area average temperature is higher, and can meet the design requirements. From the view of
comfort, the middle air supply mode is better than the two sides air supply mode.

References

[1] C.Huang,M.Li.Study on indoor vertical temperature distribution in large space building.Journal of HVAC,29(5)(1999)3-6.
[2] K.koisiake,F.Frydenlund.simplified models for air stratification and thermal comfort in atria.ASHRAE Trans,1995,101(2):1287-1297.
[3] X.Lv,Q.Yang,K.Lv.Numerical simulation of indoor floor radiant heating and radiator heating flow field. Building energy conservation
Journal,01(5)(2015)6-9.
[4] Z.Fan. Air conditioning design and engineering record of large space building. China Architecture and Building Press,9（3）（2001）21-25.