PRINCE LUCIEN CAMPBELL HALL - TAKE MY AIR CONDITIONER, PLEASE!

摘要

This paper describes a project to develop measures to improve comfort in a notoriously uncomfortable university office building, and save energy while doing so. The building is a constant source of complaints by occupants who are uncomfortable, both in the summer and winter, and there has been pressure to install air conditioning in some spaces. Faced with shrinking operations budgets and rising utility bills, the university, with encouragement from the local utility, asked whether there might not be a way to improve comfort without incurring the construction and operating expenses of air conditioning. By collecting empirical data on thermal conditions, building thermal and comfort computer models, and surveying the building's occupants, we showed that the building could be passively cooled to attain an acceptable level of comfort. We estimated that 77% of the current annual energy use could be saved, or 82% of annual energy if air conditioning were installed. After implementing measures in one prototype space, the mean radiant temperature in the space remained within the comfort zone during our recommended hours of summer operation even on a day when the outside temperature reached 97℉ (36℃).