2023 Volume 48 Issue 312 Pages 67-73
In recent years, extreme weather events and large-scale disasters have occurred frequently, and gymnasiums are being increasingly used as evacuation centers. In addition, the increasing risk of heat stroke due to rising summer temperatures has made it necessary to improve the thermal environment of gymnasiums. When introducing air conditioning to a gymnasium, it is necessary to consider both the comfort and the effects of air conditioning on sports competitions from the perspectives of an evacuation center and a sports facility. On the other hand, given that an independent radiant cooling system does not generate airflow, it provides a high level of comfort and its effects on sports competitions are negligible. Therefore, this system is considered suitable for gymnasium air conditioning, and the number of its installations is increasing. This study aimed to understand the basic performance of an independent radiant cooling system in large spaces. We conducted measurements in a real facility with a large space where this system was introduced to evaluate the indoor thermal environment and cooling capacity in actual operation. As a result, it was confirmed that independent radiant cooling quickly lowers the room temperature and MRT in the occupied area and dehumidifies only the bottom layer locally in a large space, suggesting that it is suitable for cooling large spaces. In this measurement, the average percentage of latent heat removal to total cooling capacity was 11.3% for Panel A and 16.3% for Panel B. Additionally, the cooling capacity in actual operation was approximately 16% lower on average than that in the laboratory, which suggests the need for appropriate consideration of capacity reduction in actual operation during design. Note that this measurement is just one example of the evaluation of cooling capacity in actual operation. In future research, the effects of latent heat removal and cooling capacity reduction in actual operation should be studied based on other examples.
