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Chapter Seven
7.Design Conditions

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 Outline
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7.1 Outdoor Design Conditions

7.2 Indoor Design Criteria and Thermal Comfort
7.3 Indoor Temperature, Relative Humidity, and Air Velocity
7.4 Indoor Air Quality and Outdoor Ventilation Air Requirements

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 7.1 Outdoor Design Conditions
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 In principle, the capacity of air-conditioning equipment should be

selected to offset or compensate for the space load so that indoor

design criteria can be maintained if the outdoor weather does not
exceed the design values.
 Outdoor and indoor design conditions are used to calculate the

design space loads.

 In energy use calculations, hour-by-hour outdoor climate data of a

design day should be adopted instead of summer and winter

design values. 02/11/2025
7.2 Indoor Design Criteria & Thermal Comfort
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 Indoor design criteria, such as space temperature, humidity, and

air cleanliness, specify the requirements for the indoor

environment as well as the quality of an air-conditioning or
HVAC&R project.
 The human body requires energy for physical and mental activity.

This energy comes from the oxidation of food.

 The rate of heat release from the oxidation process is called the

metabolic rate, expressed in met (1 met = 18.46 Btu/h.ft2).

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 The metabolic rate depends mainly on the intensity of the physical

activity of the human body.

 Heat is released from the human body by two means: sensible heat

exchange and evaporative heat loss.

 Experience and experiments all show that there is thermal comfort only

under these conditions:

 Heat transfer from the human body to the surrounding environment

causes a steady state of thermal equilibrium; that is, there is no heat

storage in the body core and skin surface.
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 Evaporative loss or regulatory sweating is maintained at a low level.

 The physiological and environmental factors that affect the thermal

comfort of the occupants in an air-conditioned space are mainly:

 Metabolic rate M determines the amount of heat that must be

released from the human body.

 Indoor air temperature Tr and mean radiant temperature Trad, both

in °F. The operating temperature To is the weighted sum of Tr and

Trad.

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 Trad is defined as the temperature of a uniform black enclosure in

which the surrounded occupant would have the same radiative

heat exchange as in an actual indoor environment.
 Tr affects both the sensible heat exchange and evaporative losses,

and Trad affects only sensible heat exchange.

 In many indoor environments, Trad » Tr .

 Relative humidity of the indoor air jr, in %, which is the primary

factor that influences evaporative heat loss.

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 Air velocity of the indoor air vr, in fpm, which affects the heat

transfer coefficients and therefore the sensible heat exchange and

evaporative loss.
 Clothing insulation Rcl, in clo (1 clo = 0.88 h.ft2.°F/Btu), affects

the sensible heat loss.

 Clothing insulation for occupants is typically 0.6 clo in summer

and 0.8 to 1.2 clo in winter.

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 7.3 Indoor Temperature, Relative Humidity, and Air Velocity
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 For comfort air-conditioning systems, according to ANSI/ASHRAE

Standard 55-1981 and ASHRAE/IES Standard 90.1-1989, the

following indoor design temperatures and air velocities apply for
conditioned spaces where the occupant’s activity level is 1.2 met,
indoor space relative humidity is 50% (in summer only), and Tr =
Trad:

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 If a suit jacket is the clothing during summer for occupants, the

summer indoor design temperature should be dropped to 74 to

75°F.
 Regarding the indoor humidity:

 Many comfort air-conditioning systems are not equipped with

humidifiers. Winter indoor relative humidity should not be

specified in such circumstances.

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 When comfort air-conditioning systems are installed with humidifiers,

ASHRAE/IES Standard 90.1-1989 requires that the humidity control

prevent “the use of fossil fuel or electricity to produce humidity in
excess of 30% ... or to reduce relative humidity below 60%.”
 Indoor relative humidity should not exceed 75% to avoid increasing

bacterial and viral populations.

 For air-conditioning systems that use flow rate control in the water

cooling coil, space indoor relative humidity may be substantially

higher in part load than at full load.
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 Therefore, for comfort air-conditioning systems, the

recommended indoor relative humidities, in %, are

 In surgical rooms or similar health care facilities, the indoor

relative humidity is often maintained at 40 to 60% year round.

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 7.4 Indoor Air Quality & Outdoor Ventilation Air Requirements.
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 According to the National Institute for Occcupational Safety and

Health (NIOSH), 1989, the causes of indoor air quality complaints

in buildings are inadequate outdoor ventilation air, 53%; indoor
contaminants, 15%; outdoor contaminants, 10%; microbial
contaminants, 5%; construction and furnishings, 4%; unknown and
others, 13%. For space served by air-conditioning systems, “A
Guide to Indoor Air Quality” (1988) and the field investigations
reported by Bayer and Black (1988), indoor air contaminants may
include some of the following: 02/11/2025
 Cont…
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1. Total particulate concentration: This concentration comprises particles

from building materials, combustion products, mineral fibers, and synthetic fibers. In

February 1989, the EPA specified the allowable indoor concentration of particles of 10

mm and less in diameter (which penetrate deeply into lungs) as:

 50 mg/m3 (0.000022 grain/ft3), 1 year

 150 mg/m3 (0.000066 grain/ft3), 24 hr

In these specifications, “1 year” means maximum allowable exposure per day over the

course of a year.

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 2. Formaldehyde and organic gases.
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 Formaldehyde is a colorless, pungent-smelling gas. It comes from

pressed wood products, building materials, and combustion.

 Formaldehyde causes eye, nose, and throat irritation as well as

coughing, fatigue, and allergic reactions. Formaldehyde may also

cause cancer.
 Other organic gases come from building materials, carpeting,

furnishings, cleaning materials, etc.

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 3. Radon
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 Radon, a colorless and odorless gas, is released by the decay of uranium

from the soil and rock beneath buildings, well water, and building
materials.
 Radon and its decay products travel through pores in soil and rock and

infiltrate into buildings along the cracks and other openings in the
basement slab and walls.
 Radon at high levels causes lung cancer. The EPA believes that levels in

most homes can be reduced to 4 pCi/l (picocuries per liter) of air. The
estimated national average is 1.5 pCi/l, and levels as high as 200 pCi/l
have been found in houses. 02/11/2025
 4. Biologicals
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These include bacteria, fungi, mold and mildew, viruses, and

pollen. They may come from wet and moist walls, carpet
furnishings, and poorly maintained dirty air-conditioning systems
and may be transmitted by people. Some biological contaminants
cause allergic reactions, and some transmit infectious diseases.

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 5. Combustion products
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 These include environmental tobacco smoke, nitrogen dioxide, and

carbon monoxide.
 Environmental tobacco smoke from cigarettes is a discomfort factor to

other persons who do not smoke, especially children. Nicotine and other
tobacco smoke components cause lung cancer, heart disease, and many
other diseases. Nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide are both
combustion products from unvented kerosene and gas space heaters,
woodstoves, and fireplaces.
 Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) causes eye, nose, and throat irritation; may

impair lung function; and increases respiratory infections. 02/11/2025

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 Carbon monoxide (CO) causes fatigue at low concentrations;

impaired vision, headache, and confusion at higher

concentrations; and is fatal at very high concentrations. Houses
without gas heaters and gas stoves may have CO levels varying
from 0.5 to 5 parts per million (ppm).

6. Human bio-effluents. These include the emissions from

breath including carbon dioxide exhaled from the lungs, body odors
from sweating, and gases emitted as flatus

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 There are three basic means of reducing the concentration of indoor air

contaminants and improving indoor air quality:

(1) eliminate or reduce the source of air pollution,
(2) enhance the efficiency of air filtration, and
(3) increase the ventilation (outdoor) air intake.
 Dilution of the concentrations of indoor contaminants by outdoor

ventilation air is often the simple and cheapest way to improve indoor air
quality.
 The amount of outdoor air required for metabolic oxidation is rather small.

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 Abridged outdoor air requirements listed in ANSI/ASHRAE

Standard 62-1989 are as follows:

 Applications cfm/person
 Hotels, conference rooms, offices 20
 Retail stores 0.2–0.3 cfm/ft2
 Classrooms, theaters, auditoriums 15
 Hospital patient rooms 25

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 These requirements are based on the analysis of dilution of CO2 as

the representative human bioeffluent to an allowable indoor

concentration of 1000 ppm.
 Field measurements of daily maximum CO2 levels in office

buildings reported by Persily (1993) show that most of them were

within the range 400 to 820 ppm.
 The quality of outdoor air must meet the EPA’s National Primary

and Secondary Ambient Air Quality Standards, some of which is

listed below:
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 Here exposure means average period of exposure.

 If unusual contaminants or unusually strong sources of contaminants are
introduced into the space, or recirculated air is to replace part of the outdoor air
supply for occupants, then acceptable indoor air quality is achieved by
controlling known and specific contaminants. This is called an indoor air quality
procedure. Refer to ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 62-1989 for details.

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 Electronic, pharmaceutical, and aerospace industries and

operating rooms in hospitals all need strict control of air

cleanliness during manufacturing and operations.
 According to ASHRAE Handbook 1991 HVAC Applications,

clean rooms can be classified as follows based on the particle

count per ft3:

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 Clean Rooms
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 Electronic, pharmaceutical, and aerospace industries and operating rooms in

hospitals all need strict control of air cleanliness during manufacturing and
operations.
 According to ASHRAE Handbook 1991 HVAC Applications, clean rooms can
be classified as follows based on the particle count per ft3:

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 For clean rooms, space temperature is often maintained at 72 ±

2°F and space humidity at 45 ± 5%.

 Here, ±2°F and ±5% are allowable tolerances. Federal Standard

209B specifies that the ventilation (outdoor air) rate should be 5

to 20% of the supply air.

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 Space Pressure Differential
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 Most air-conditioning systems are designed to maintain a slightly

higher pressure than the surroundings, a positive pressure, to

prevent or reduce infiltration and untreated air entering the space
directly.
 For laboratories, restrooms, or workshops where toxic,
hazardous, or objectional gases or contaminants are produced, a
slightly lower pressure than the surroundings, a negative pressure,
should be maintained to prevent or reduce the diffusion of these
contaminants’ ex filtrate to the surrounding area.
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 For comfort air-conditioning systems, the recommended pressure

differential between the indoor and outdoor air is 0.02 to 0.05 in in.
WG. WG indicates the pressure at the bottom of a top-opened water
column of specific inches of height; 1 in. WG = 0.03612 psig.
 For clean rooms, Clean Rooms and Work Stations Requirements
(1973), specifies that the minimum positive pressure between the
clean room and any adjacent area with lower cleanliness
requirements should be 0.05 in.
 WG with all entryways closed. When the entryways are open, an
outward flow of air is to be maintained to prevent migration of
contaminants into the clean room.
 In comfort systems, the space pressure differential is usually not
specified in the design documents.
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 Sound Levels
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 Noise is any unwanted sound. In air-conditioning systems, noise

should be attenuated or masked with another less objectionable
sound.
 Sound power is the capability to radiate power from a sound
source exited by an energy input. The intensity of sound power
is the output from a sound source expressed in watts (W). Due
to the wide variation of sound output at a range of 1020 to 1, it
is more convenient to use a logarithmic expression to define a
sound power level Lw, in dB:

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 The human ear and microphones are sound pressure sensitive.

Similarly to the sound power level, the sound pressure level Lp, in
dB, is defined as:

 The sound power level of any sound source is a fixed output. It

cannot be measured directly; it can only be calculated from the
measured sound pressure level.
 The sound pressure level at any one point is affected by the
distance from the source and the characteristics of the
surroundings.
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 Human ears can hear frequencies from 20 Hz to 20 kHz. For

convenience in analysis, sound frequencies are often subdivided
into eight octave bands.
 An octave is a frequency band in which the frequency of the upper
limit of the octave is double the frequency of the lower limit.
 An octave band is represented by its center frequency, such as 63,
125, 250, 500, 1000, 2000, 4000, and 8000 Hz. On 1000 Hz the
octave band has a higher limit of 1400 Hz and a lower limit of 710
Hz.
 Human ears do not respond in the same way to low frequencies as
to high frequencies.

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 The object of noise control in an air conditioned space is to provide

background sound low enough that it does not interfere with the
acoustical requirements of the occupants.
 The distribution of background sound should be balanced over a
broad range of frequencies, that is, without whistle, hum, rumble,
and beats.
 The most widely used criteria for sound control are the noise
criteria NC curves.
 The shape of NC curves is similar to the equal-loudness contour
representing the response of the human ear.
 NC curves also intend to indicate the permissible sound pressure
level of broad-band noise at various octave bands rated by a single
NC curve. NC curves are practical and widely used. 02/11/2025
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 Other criteria used are room criteria (RC) curves and A-weighted

sound level, dB. RC curves are similar to NC curves except that

the shape of the RC curves is a close approximation to a
balanced, bland-sounding spectrum. The A-weighted sound level
is a single value and simulates the response of the human ear to
sound at low sound pressure levels.
 The following are abridged indoor design criteria, NC or RC

range, listed in ASHRAE Handbook 1987 Systems and

Applications: 02/11/2025
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 For industrial factories, if the machine noise in a period of 8 hr exceeds 90 dB,

Occupational Safety and Health Administration Standard Part 1910.95 requires
the occupants to use personal protection equipment.
 If the period is shorter, the dB level can be slightly higher. Refer to this
standard for details.
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Thank You…!!!

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