Control of HVAC system comfort by sampling

Abstract

The sampling of the users comfort, allows observing and predicting the level of comfort on the HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) systems. The development of online sampling systems assists in the recognition of the behavior patterns that occur in the offices. This paper presents a user-friendly tool designed and developed in order to make easier knowledge extraction and representation to make possible decisions about which demand that must prevail, the user comfort or saving into a central system. This decision may depend on the occupation and feeling of comfort of its occupants. Some studies have put neutral thermal conditions outside the ranges of comfort of the ASHRAE standard. The actual rules of the HVAC systems are based on studies carried out on specific populations in a specific space, which are not valid in certain situations. This is a dynamic idea of the comfort based in real data. The methodology used provides important and useful information to be able to select the comfort set-point of the rooms of a central heating system without the need to use fixed values based on programmed time schedules or any other methodology. The response to comfort in an area of a building throughout the day can be seen in this study. The users were assessed using a standard set of key questions in order to measure the level of satisfaction with environmental factors, thanks to a questionnaire of imprecise answers. We seek an improvement in the building users, regardless of their particularities.