37º IAHS World Congress on Housing: - Universidad de Cantabria

XXXVII <strong>IAHS</strong><strong>World</strong> <strong>Congress</strong> on HousingOctober 26 – 29, 2010, Santander, SpainCODE: 917AIR CONDITIONING SYSTEMS AND GEOGRAPHY: ANINTRODUCTORY COMPARISONMiguel Cavique i and António Gonçalves-Coelho iii Department of Mechanical EngineeringSchool of TechnologyInstituto Politécnico de Setúbal,Campus do IPS, Estefanilha, 2910-761 Setúbal,Portugale-mail: miguel.cavique@estsetubal.ips.pti UNIDEMI,i Department of Mechanical and IndustrialEngineering,Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia (FCT),Universidade Nova de Lisboa (UNL)Campus de Caparica, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugale-mail:miguel.cavique@fct.unl.ptii UNIDEMI,ii Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering,Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia (FCT),Universidade Nova de Lisboa (UNL)Campus de Caparica, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugale-mail: goncalves.coelho@fct.unl.ptKey words: Air-conditioning systems, fan-coils, induction unitsAbstractAir conditioning systems (HVAC) play a main role in the indoor ambience and have importantrepercussions in the outdoor environment. In the indoor ambience, comfort and air quality (IAQ) arethe main components for that purpose. In addition, in what concerns to the outdoor environment, theenergy and the CO 2 emissions are the main issues. Anyway, the market tends to define a systemwithout taking into account the local climate conditions.This paper compares two air conditioning systems, applied to a building in Lisbon and subjected tothe common indoor air psychrometric and ventilation conditions: the fan-coil unit (FCU) airconditioning system, often used in the buildings of southerner countries of EU; and the induction unitsystem (IU), an old system recently reengineered in the Scandinavian countries.The evaluation of both systems employ the Energy Plus building thermal model, which allowsobtaining the heat loads of the different zones of the building. A post-processing program uses thesedata, in combination with the outdoor air psychrometric conditions and the ventilation air flow. Ateach hour of the year, the program calculates the Fanger PMV comfort index, the percentage ofdissatisfied with the indoor CO 2 concentration and the energy consumption of each system.One concludes that both systems are able to fulfil the requirements. Nevertheless, the VC systemperforms better than the IU system in what relates to the comfort indexes and to the consumption ofenergy. The opposite is valid in terms of IAQ indexes.37º <strong>IAHS</strong> <strong>World</strong> <strong>Congress</strong> On Housing Science 295