Airflow control for personal air-conditioning in a partly unoccupied zone using a multi-flow ceiling cassette type packaged air-conditioner

There are various demands for air-conditioning in each office space resulting from the variability of thermal distribution caused by a bias of heat sources. Furthermore, individual demands on the thermal environment are diverse. Therefore, it is difficult to satisfy all demands using conventional air-conditioning systems since these assume perfect mixing. Instead, demand may vary with the result that some spaces could be excessively or unnecessarily cooled. This paper examines an airflow and temperature control for personal air-conditioning. This is aimed at providing personal comfort on demand while not unnecessarily cooling unoccupied zones. The method utilizes a multi-flow ceiling cassette type packaged air-conditioner. In this study, thermal comfort and energy performance were analysed using CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics). From this a personal air control and thermal comfort strategy was developed.