Field study on indoor thermal environmental performance in an office building

Abstract

As Malaysia is characterized by high day time temperature and humidity with low air velocity, providing a comfortable office building always is a problem to developers and occupants. Moreover, the existence of office equipments has increased the internal heat gains and it affects the indoor comfort condition in most office. Thus, a study on indoor thermal performance of an office building has been carried out in Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM). A site measuring was conducted approximately 13 days in March 2010 in an office room in Development and Properties Management Centre. This site measuring was to investigate the indoor, environment performance in the building, with and without air conditioner functioning. Two sets of Thermal Comfort Station and KYOWA UCAM 60B Data Logger were used to measure indoor and outdoor thermal environment on the ground floor and the first floor. This study shows that average temperature for Condition 1 are 18.42°C (first floor) and 24.32°C (ground floor) Ta with neutral temperature are 22.2°C and 20.6°C, while relative humidity are 50.44% and 58.73% respectively. Average temperature for Condition 2 are 26.65°C (first floor) and 27.60°C (ground floor) Ta with neutral temperature are 21.8°C and 21.2°C while relative humidity 59.60% and 77.29% respectively. This study was found that indoor thermal environment in this office is within comfort range.