Effect of internal partitions on thermal comfort and IAQ level provided by underfloor air distribution system in a typical Office Space

The aim of this research is to investigate the performance of the underfloor air distribution systems (UFAD) in providing satisfactory comfort conditions for the occupants in an office building. The study was carried out using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation using a commercial CFD code ANSYS 15. The CFD modelling techniques solved the continuity, momentum, energy, and species transport equations in addition to k-epsilon model equations for turbulence closure. The SIMPLEC algorithm is used for the pressure-velocity coupling and a second order upwind scheme was used for discretization of the governing equations. Mesh sizes used in the present work exceeded 1700,000 mesh volumes in all cases, which allowed better and meaningful predictions of the flow regimes. Throughout the investigations, the effect of office partitioning on the performance of thermal comfort, and the indoor air quality in UFAD system is analysed.