Simulation model for the evaluation of the effect of office dressing code on building space cooling demand

The indoor air temperature in buildings is one of the main parameters determining both the indoor thermal comfort of inhabitants and the energy consumption of the Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning systems (HVAC). Clothing insulation of building residents is a key factor dramatically affecting people thermal comfort and HVAC energy demand. Indoor set point temperature, depends on clothing factor, relative humidity and mean radiant temperature. Although the clothing insulation values are selected according to well-known standards, clothing insulation depends on several factors: the metabolic heat production, activity and gender (females tend to be cooler than males in cool conditions). Therefore, users can adjust their clothing insulation according to the outdoor temperature change, suiting their own thermal comfort requirement. In this framework, a dynamic simulation model for the evaluation of the comfort conditions and the cooling energy consumption based on the variation in clothing insulation for office applications is developed in the present work. In order to calculate the space cooling demand, a suitable thermal zone was modelled by the TRNSYS Type 56 coupled to the Google SketchUp TRNSYS3d plug-in. The model was validated and applied to a suitable case study, an office room located at University of Federico II in Naples (Italy). Different sensitivity analyses were performed changing the clothing insulation and the office set-point temperature, to estimate both the comfort conditions and cooling energy demands. The model can be considered a flexible tool to suggest simple clothing adjustment behaviors which may represent a tradeoff among thermal comfort, energy saving and dressing code.