Experimental investigations and computational thermal simulation on human thermal comfort during performing office tasks

Abstract

Thermal have significantly impact the productivity of work as well as the occupants’ satisfaction to their surroundings. The objective of this study is to evaluate the implication of thermal environmental conditions to human/manikin in a ventilated air conditioning space using CFD simulations. The thermal distributions of environmental parameters, which were air velocity, air temperature, radiant temperature, inside an office room with air-conditioning system were simulated. The design of experimental study was utilised through the controlled conditions based on the real laboratory studies and real case studies which were later on utilised as the external validity of the field studies. The model of the office environment has been built in the ANSYS Engineering simulation software. The thermal distributions, spatial profiles of PMV are obtained to illustrate thermal conditions intuitively. The distribution of PMV indicated that operative temperature at the 23 °C shows that the PMV is at the level of comfort. Meanwhile the value of PMV for the operative temperature at 23 °C is at 0.79 near the skin of manikin. The research outputs provide useful information for engineers especially in designing air-conditioning system in order to design and build a comfortable indoor environment climate especially in the office environment.