Total heat gain and the split between radiant and convective heat gain from office and laboratory equipment in buildings
- Kansas State Univ., Manhattan, KS (United States)
An accurate determination of the cooling load is important in the proper sizing of air-conditioning equipment. Improvements on the thermal insulation characteristics of building materials and recent advances in building envelope systems have reduced the building cooling load from external sources. However, the number of internal cooling load sources have increased due to the addition of various office and laboratory equipment (e.g., microcomputer, monitor, printer copier, scanner, overhead projector, microwave oven, incubator, etc.). In this article, typical office and laboratory equipment such as desktop computers (with a Pentium and a 486DX2-33 processor), monitors, a copier, a laser printer, and a biological incubator are evaluated to determine the total heat gain and the split between radiant and convective heat gain from these items. In addition, two standard objects with well-defined radiant heat loss characteristics, a heated flat slab, and a heated sphere are used to verify the accuracy of measurement and data reduction procedures. The total heat gain from tested office equipment was significantly less than the name plate ratings even when operated continuously. The actual power consumption ranged from 14% to 36% of the name plate ratings. Thus, care must be taken when using equipment nameplate ratings in estimating total heat gain for air-conditioning equipment sizing.
- Sponsoring Organization:
- American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Inc., Atlanta, GA (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 653205
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-980123--
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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