BEEI 

3433 
ENERGY EFFICIENCY

Chapter 4
Mechanical
Ventilation and Air
Conditioning System
BEEI 3433 Energy Efficiency 1
 Introduction

 Ventilation is defined as supply of fresh outside air

into an enclosed space or the removal of inside air
from the enclosed space.
 Ventilation may be achieved either by natural or
artificial means.
 Air conditioning is the process of altering the
properties of air (primarily temperature and
humidity) to more favourable conditions.
 To maintain the health and comfort of the
occupants, or to meet the requirements of
industrial processes irrespective of the external
climatic conditions

BEEI 3433 Energy Efficiency 2

 Ventilation
Ventilation is essential:
 Prevent accumulation of body heat and
odours.
 Remove dilutes gases (such as carbon
dioxide), and inhibits the spread of
respiratory diseases.
 Provide comfortable environment
 Prevent suffocation

BEEI 3433 Energy Efficiency 3

Natural Ventilation

BEEI 3433 Energy Efficiency 4

Natural Ventilation

BEEI 3433 Energy Efficiency 5

 Natural Ventilation

General Rules for Natural Ventilations

 Inlet opening in the building should be well
distributed and should be located on the
windward side at a low level
 Outlet openings should be located on the
leeward side near the top.
 When outlet serves also as inlets, they
should be located at the same level.
 Inlet opening should be free from all
obstructions- trees, buildings, signboards etc

BEEI 3433 Energy Efficiency 6

Mechanical Ventilation

Mechanical Ventilation

BEEI 3433 Energy Efficiency 7

 Mechanical Ventilation
Mechanical ventilation involves the use of
some mechanical equipment's for effective air
circulation.
 It is applied when natural ventilation is
unsatisfactory in respect of quality, quantity
and controllability.
 This system is costly but improves on the
situation extraction (Exhaust) and Supply
 It facilitate air circulation for heating and air
conditioning systems, by providing
pathways for either heated/conditioned or
return airflows.
BEEI 3433 Energy Efficiency 8
 Mechanical Ventilation
Celling Fans
 Almost all types of houses and offices use
fan in bedrooms, living rooms and offices
area.
 Variety of fans like ceiling, table mounted,
and wall mounted, pedestal fans are
available in the market.
 Air circulation by ceiling fans cover normal
area of 9 to 10 sq. m.
 Ceiling fans are widely used in all premises
for the purpose of ventilation.
 The ceiling fans are effective only over
certain limited areas
BEEI 3433 Energy Efficiency 9
 Mechanical Ventilation
Celling Fans

BEEI 3433 Energy Efficiency 10

 Mechanical Ventilation
Air Conditioning
 It is the process of treating air so to control
simultaneously its temperature, humidity,
purity, and distribution to meets the
requirement of the conditioned space.
 W.H. Carriers who is known as the ‘Father of
Air Conditioning’ engineered and installed
the first year around air conditioning
system, providing for the major functions of
heating, cooling, humidifying and
dehumidifying.

BEEI 3433 Energy Efficiency 11

 Air Conditioning
 Carrier Presented “Rational Psychometric
Formulae/Related to the dry bulb, wet bulb,
and dew point temperature of air with its
sensible, latent and total heats and
presented a theory of adiabatic saturation.
 The dry-bulb temperature (DBT) is the
temperature of air measured by a
thermometer freely exposed to the air, but
shielded from radiation and moisture.
 The Dry Bulb Temperature refers basically
to the ambient air temperature

BEEI 3433 Energy Efficiency 12

 Air Conditioning
 Wet bulb temperature is the lowest temperature to
which air can be cooled by the evaporation of
water into the air at a constant pressure.
 It is measured by wrapping a wet wick around the
bulb of a thermometer.

BEEI 3433 Energy Efficiency 13

 Air Conditioning
 The dew point is the temperature to which air
must be cooled to become saturated with water
vapor.
 When cooled further, the airborne water vapor will
condense to form liquid water (dew).
 The temperature and relative humidity are
directly related to Dew Point
 Our comfort depends on combination of the
humidity and temperature, air conditioning
controls these 2 variables, what we know as
climate control.

BEEI 3433 Energy Efficiency 14

Air Conditioning

BEEI 3433 Energy Efficiency 15

 Air Conditioning
Basic System
 An air conditioner works by moving heat
from inside to outside your house using a
process of evaporating and condensing a
liquid
 Air conditioning systems can be broadly
classified in two categories-
 Direct expansion systems (DX systems)
 Chilled Water (Indirect) Systems.

BEEI 3433 Energy Efficiency 16

 Air Conditioning
Direct expansion systems
(DX systems)
 It is the system where the
refrigerant is utilized to cool
the air directly.
 Room air conditioners,
packaged units, and central
direct expansion plants.

BEEI 3433 Energy Efficiency 17

 Air Conditioning
Direct expansion systems (DX systems)

BEEI 3433 Energy Efficiency 18

 Air Conditioning
Chilled Water (Indirect) Systems.

 Chilled water systems provide cooling to a

building by using chilled water to absorb
heat from the building’s spaces.
 At the heart of the system, a chiller removes
heat from water by means of a refrigeration
cycle.
 Another water loop flows through the chiller and
picks up heat then returns to cooling tower.
 The cooling tower removes heat from the water by
evaporating some of the water into the atmosphere.

BEEI 3433 Energy Efficiency 19

 Air Conditioning
Chilled Water (Indirect) Systems.

BEEI 3433 Energy Efficiency 20

 Central Air Conditioning
 Central air conditioning, commonly is an air
conditioning system which uses ducts to
distribute cooled and/or dehumidified air to
more than one room.
 For companies or larger buildings, such as
offices, shopping malls, hospitals,
restaurants, hotels and other places that are
multi-leveled, have a certain amount of
square footage and are visited by the public
or have many employees.

BEEI 3433 Energy Efficiency 21

 Central Air Conditioning
 Ducting

BEEI 3433 Energy Efficiency 22

 District Cooling
 Centralized production of chilled water at
district cooling plant.
 Generated chilled water will is channeled to
various building blocks through insulated
underground pipes.
 The output of one cooling plant is enough to
meet the cooling-energy demand of many
buildings.
 Runs on electricity or natural gas.

BEEI 3433 Energy Efficiency 23

District Cooling

BEEI 3433 Energy Efficiency 24

District Cooling

BEEI 3433 Energy Efficiency 25

District Cooling

BEEI 3433 Energy Efficiency 26

District Cooling

BEEI 3433 Energy Efficiency 27

 Air Conditioning Calculations
 Important because if done wrongly, you will
end up installing an oversize or undersize
equipment
 Cooling capacity for a room is defined as
the heat load in a room that have to be
removed in order to achieve a certain room
temperature and humidity.
 The typical design is set to 24°C
temperature and 55% Relative Humidity,
the most conducive for the human body

BEEI 3433 Energy Efficiency 28

 Air Conditioning Calculations
Cooling Capacity
 The unit used to measure heat load is
British Thermal Unit Btu/hr.
 1 Btu/hr is the heat energy needed to
increase 1 pound of water by 1°F.
 1 hp (horse power) equipment is able to
remove 9,000 Btu/hr of heat
 With better technology, some Air
conditioners are able to remove 10,000
Btu/hr of heat with the same hp.
 The higher the listed Btu/hr, the greater the
cooling capacity.
BEEI 3433 Energy Efficiency 29
 Air Conditioning Calculations
Calculations - Rule Of Thumb
Step 1
Find the volume of your room in cubic feet. This is
done by measuring the length, width and height of the
room in feet and multiply all the three dimensions
together.
Volume = Width X Length X Height (cubic feet)

Step 2
Multiply this volume by 6.
C1 = Volume X 6

BEEI 3433 Energy Efficiency 30

 Air Conditioning Calculations
Calculations - Rule Of Thumb
Step 3
Estimate the number of people (N) that will usually
occupy this room. Each person produces about 500
Btu/hr of heat for normal office-related activity.
Multiply this two figures together.
C2 = N x 500 Btu/hr

Step 4
Add C1 and C2 together and you will get a very
simplified cooling capacity needed for the room.

Estimated Cooling Capacity needed = C1 + C2 (Btu/hr)

BEEI 3433 Energy Efficiency 31

 Air Conditioning Calculations
Example
A bedroom of size approximately 3.048 m
(W) x 3.048 m (L) x 2.743 m (H) needs an air
conditioning installed. If TWO (2) persons
were to sleep in the room, determine the
optimum size of the air conditioning system
(in horse power) required

BEEI 3433 Energy Efficiency 32

 Air Conditioning Calculations
Solution
Step 1
Convert meter to feet.
3.048 m = 10 ft
2.743 m = 9 ft
Volume = 10 X 10 X 9 =900 ft3

Step 2
Multiply this volume by 6.
C1 = 900 X 6 = 5400 Btu/hr

BEEI 3433 Energy Efficiency 33

 Air Conditioning Calculations
Step 3
Number of people (N) = 2
C2 = 2 x 500 Btu/hr = 1000 Btu/hr

Step 4
Add C1 and C2 together and you will get a very
simplified cooling capacity needed for the room.

Estimated Cooling Capacity needed

= 5600 + 1000 = 6600 (Btu/hr)

The smallest Air conditioner is 1hp = 9000 Btu/hr, so it

is the optimum size for the room
BEEI 3433 Energy Efficiency 34
BEEI 3433 Energy Efficiency 35