The Improvement of Thermal Comfort and Air Quality in the Historic Assembly Hall of a University

Abstract

This paper presents the concept of air-conditioning and thermal environment of the monumental historic auditorium at the University of Wrocław. There are several requirements to be taken into account concerning the air-conditioning, since this is both a museum and an assembly hall. To maintain the required air parameters, as well as good air quality, comfort air-conditioning was designed, using an all-air system with heat recovery. A heat–humidity balance for the auditorium using dynamic thermal calculations was derived by use of a computer program – the building thermal model ESP-r. The concept of the air distribution in the auditorium was validated and improved, numerically predicting the flow of air, heat, humidity and carbon dioxide, using the computer code CFD ANSYS Airpak. This confirmed that the air-conditioning can ensure the airing of the auditorium and the maintaining of air parameters within the required ranges.

Keywords

Air-conditioning Air distribution Air quality Heat and moisture gain Numerical calculation Thermal comfort

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