Chapter 4

Comfort and Health— Indoor Environmental Quality

Comfort conditions

Environmental factors
• Dry bulb temperature
• Humidity
• Air motion
• Radiations

Personal factors
• Activity level
• Clothing
• MET: metabolic rate of a sedentary person (seated, quiet): 1 met
=18.4 Btu/(hr-ft2) (58.2 W/m2)

• 19.6 ft2 (1.82 m2)

• 360Btu/hr (106 W) when functioning in a quiet, seated manner.
• 1 clo =0.880 (F-ft2-hr)/Btu [0.155 (m2-C)/W]
Vernon’s globe thermometer, which consists of a hollow sphere6 in. in diameter,
flat black paint coating, and a thermocouple or thermometer bulb at its center.
• Rational indices depend on theoretical concepts already developed.

• Empirical indices are based on measurements with subjects or on simplified relation-ships that do
not necessarily follow theory

• 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

• 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
• operative temperature: average of the mean radiant and ambient air temperatures

• adjusted dry bulb temperature: uniform temperature of an imaginary enclosure with which an
individual exchanges the same heat by radiation and convection as in the actual environment

• humid operative temperature: temperature of a uniform environment at 100 percent relative

humidity in which a person loses the same total amount of heat from the skin as in the actual
environment.

• adiabatic equivalent temperature: the temperature of a uniform environment at 0 percent

relative humidity in which a person loses the same total amount of heat from the skin as in the
actual environment

• heat stress index: total evaporative heat loss required for thermal equilibrium to the maximum
evaporative heat loss possible for the environ-ment, multiplied by 100

• skin wittedness: ratio of observed skin sweating to the max-imum possible sweating for the
environment
Comfort chart
• Predicted mean vote(PMV) index: predicts the mean response of a large group of people
according to the ASHRAE thermal sensation scale

• 10% dissatisfaction rate

• Overlapping of the comfort zone due to clothing

• Active persons are less sensitive to drafts of air

• ET* lines are not vertical (identical to dry bulb temp at 50% rel. hum
Effect of clothing insulation
Effect of air speed
Effect of clothing and activity levels
 Long term and short term exposures
ASHRAE Standard 62-1999, “Ventilation for Acceptable Indoor Air Quality”
 Containment control mechanisms
1. Source elimination or modification:
1. Smoking
2. Source of moisture, UV lamps

2. Use of outdoor air: Dilution of unwanted chemicals by mixing fresh air

3. Space air distribution:
4. Air cleaning:
Use of outdoor air:
Contaminant generation
 Use of outdoor air (cont)

Long term and short term exposures

Use of outdoor air (cont)
 Use of outdoor air (cont)
Recirculated air: The air removed from the conditioned space and intended for
reuse as supply air.

return air: Some of the return air may be exhausted or relieved through dampers or by fans

Makeup air is outdoor air sup-plied to replace exhaust air and exfiltration

Exfiltration is air leakage outward through cracks and interstices and through ceilings, floors,
and walls of a space or building

• Air flow balance to maintain pressure

• occupied zone is the region within an occupied space between the floor and 72 in. (1800
mm) above the floor and more than 2 ft (600 mm) from the wall or fixed air-conditioning
equipment

• “S” is called the occupied zone bypass factor

Use of outdoor air (cont)
Use of outdoor air (cont)
 Use of outdoor air (cont)
Standard 62-1999 describes two procedures to achieve acceptable indoor air quality through the use of outdoor air

• The Ventilation Rate Procedure, prescribes the rate at which outdoor air must be delivered to different types of
conditioned spaces and various means to condition that air

• The outdoor air quality acceptable for ventilation or treated when necessary
• Ventilation rates for residential, commercial, institutional, vehicular, and industrial spaces
• Criteria for reduction of outdoor air quantities when recirculated air is treated
• Criteria for variable ventilation when the air volume in the space can be used as a reservoir to dilute
contaminants

• The second procedure of Standard 62-1999, the “Indoor Air Quality Procedure,” pro-vides a direct solution to
acceptable IAQ by restricting the concentration of all known contaminants of concern to some specified acceptable
levels
Space air distribution:
• Where contaminants exist in only a small portion of the conditioned space, it is desir-able to minimize mixing of air
within the occupied zone
• displacement ventilation
• Positioning of ducts according to load. More cooling may be obtained by positioning ducts near the occupied zone.
 Air cleaning mechanisms

Gas removal
• Absorption: solid and liquid absorbers may be used to reduce carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide to carbon,
returning the oxygen to the conditioned space
• Adsorption, activated Charcol
• Chemisorption
• Catalysis: Catalytic combustion permits the burning of the offending gas at temperatures lower than with
unassisted combustion and is widely used in automobiles to reduce urban air pollution.
Particle removal; filtering
The three operating characteristics that can be used to compare various types are
• Efficiency
• Air-flow resistance
• Dust-holding capacity