Thermal comfort in office buildings

The Department of Energy (DOE), the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) and other government agencies and professional associations which are interested in to the building industry have initiated policies and developed methods to reduce energy consumption in buildings. Policies and methods designed to reduce energy usage in buildings have had significant impacts on building performance characteristics and indoor air quality and environmental conditions. These include ventilation and space conditioning, temperature and humidity control, acoustics, occupant perception, worker productivity, and other related factors. An integrated protocol consisting of appropriate engineering measurements and related occupant surveys is developed and used in this study is used to survey the first five buildings in the United States. Performance parameters assessed experimentally in this thesis work include ventilation, temperature and humidity as well as numerical simulations using STAR-CD for temperature, air distribution and concentration profiles of contaminants in several arrangements of air distribution in a typical office space. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).