Refrigeration and Air Conditioning

(ME 439)

Instructor Dr. Muhammad Asif

Lecture 9

Chapter 4
Comfort and Health— Indoor Environmental Quality

Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, GIK Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology

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 Human Comfort
 Condition of mind which expresses satisfaction with the
thermal environment and indoor air quality
 Not everyone can be made completely comfortable by
one set of conditions
 but clear understanding of what is involved in providing
comfort to most of the occupants in a controlled space
has been developed

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 Why should we care about
comfort?
• Health and well-being: many thermal
conditions can cause health problems
• Optimize performance (for work or leisure)
• Improved perceived quality of life

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 Human Comfort
Factors Affecting Human Comfort
Environmental factor :
 control of temperature
 humidity
 air motion
 radiant sources interacting with the occupants
 Odor, Contaminants, noise, and vibration

Non-Environmental factors:
 dress
 activity level of the occupants

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Healthy human body has a
constant body temperature of
36.9 ℃

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Metabolic Rate
A unit to express the metabolic rate per unit of body surface area is the met,
defined as the metabolic rate of a sedentary person (seated, quiet): 1 met = 18.4
Btu/(hr-ft2) (58.2 W/m2).
Metabolic heat generation rates typical
of various activities are given in the
ASHRAE Handbook, Fundamentals
Volume (1).

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 Type and Amount of Clothing
Clothing insulation is usually described as a single equivalent uniform layer over the whole body. Its insulating
value is expressed in terms of clo units:

CLO is describe the degree of insulation provided by an article

of clothing. CLO value of 1 is equal to the amount of clothing
required by a resting human to maintain thermal comfort at a
room temperature of 21 degrees Celsius

The clo has the same dimensions as the R value (square

metre kelvins per watt or m2⋅K/W)

1 clo = 0.155 K·m2·W−1

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ENVIRONMENTAL COMFORT
INDICES/EVALUATION

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 A qualitative assessment
involves
Talking to people
Observations

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 “Thermal sensation” scale
Predictive Mean Vote (PMV)
Fanger’s Voting Scale
Predictive Percentage Dissatisfied (PPD)

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Predictive Mean Vote (PMV)

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 Predictive Percentage Dissatisfied (PPD)
• Index that establishes the percentage of
thermally dissatisfied people who feel too
cool or too warm
• It predicts the number of thermally
dissatisfied persons among a larger group
of people
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 A quantitative assessment
• Air Temperature (Standard thermometer)
• Humidity (Whiling hygrometer)
• Radiant Heat (Globe thermometer)
• Air velocity (Kata thermometer)

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Vernon’s globe thermometer, which
consists of a hollow copper sphere 6 in. in
diameter, flat black paint coating, and a
thermocouple or thermometer bulb at its
center.

1. Mean Radiant Temperature

- Incorporates air temperature,

air velocity and solar radiation
- lacks in humidity
 2. Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT)

is an environmental heat stress index that combines the dry bulb temperature tdb,
a naturally ventilated wet bulb temperature tnwb, and the globe temperature tg.

It also incorporated humidity

In enclosed environment, the index may be calculated:

Both equations are valid for any consistent unit of temperature

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3.effective temperature ET is the temperature of an
environment at 50 percent relative humidity that results in the
same total heat loss from the skin as in the actual environment
• combines temperature and humidity
• depends on both clothing and activity

4. standard effective temperature(SET):

• Clothing insulation =0.6 clo,
• moisture permeability index =0.4,
• metabolic activity level =1.0 met,
• air velocity < 20 fpm, and
• ambient temperature =mean radiant temperature

5. operative temperature: average of the mean radiant and ambient air temperatures
Comfort chart

• Upper boundary: microbial growth,

• Lower: eye irritation, dry skin, respiratory health
• Left and Right: Discomfort due to evaporative
loss

For 1.2< met< 3

Acceptable operative temperature

 Air speed
 ASHRAE 62-1989- Objective of ventilation is satisfaction
of 80% of inhabitants
 This is corresponds to 2.25 CFM (cubic feet per minute)
of outdoor air per person
 To allow for individual variations in health, eating and
activity level, and presence of other air contaminants, with
a margin of safety, ASHRAE Standard 62.1, ventilation for
Acceptable Indoor Air Quality, specifies a minimum of 15
CFM ( 8 L/s) of outdoor air per person
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Effect of air speed
Effect of clothing and activity levels
Effect of clothing insulation
Humidity

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Humidity Health Effects-
Relative Humidity

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 Humidity-Methods to Control humidity
In extreme humid outdoor condition or large requirements for
outdoor (make up) air, or high ratio of internal latent to sensible
loads (such as with an indoor swimming pool) may require special
dehumidification
1. Refrigerant dehumidifier
2. Using surface desiccant

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Refrigerant Dehumidifier

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 DESICCANT DEHUMIDIFIERS
• mostly used in the commercial and industrial sector, where large amounts of
sometimes extremely dry air are required also at low temperatures
• Silica gel is a adsorbent (each gram of this desiccant has a surface of more
than 700 square meters). This means that less than 10 grams have a surface
as large as an entire football pitch.

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 Heat Index
• Combine Health effect (Temperature +Humidity)

Heat Index = -42.379 + 2.04901523T +

10.14333127R - 0.22475541TR - 6.83783 x
10-3T2 - 5.481717 x 10-2R2 + 1.22874 x 10-3T2R
+ 8.5282 x 10-4TR2 - 1.99 x 10-6T2R2

T - air temperature (F)

R - relative humidity (percentage)

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