Optimizing Personal Exposure to Particulate Matter, Energy Consumption and Thermal Comfort Inside a Test House
NISHCHAYA MISHRA, Marina Vance, Atila Novoselac, Sameer Patel,
Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar Abstract Number: 168
Working Group: Control and Mitigation Technology
AbstractPeople worldwide spend more than 80% of their time in the built environment, and thus it becomes imperative to assess indoor environment quality (IEQ), which affects human health, comfort, and productivity. IEQ is primarily controlled by indoor air quality (IAQ) and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. The HVAC operation in buildings accounts for a significant fraction of global energy consumption. A healthy and comfortable indoor environment is energy intensive owing to the interdependency of IAQ, thermal comfort, and energy consumption. This leads to a trade-off between occupants’ health, thermal comfort, and building energy consumption.
The work presented here employs a dynamic optimization strategy for controlling indoor particulate matter (PM), thermal comfort, and energy consumption. Following three different scenarios for normal and intensive PM emission in an indoor environment are discussed in this work - (1) without an HVAC filter, (2) with an HVAC filter, and (3) extreme ambient conditions. An aerosol dynamic model integrated with a physics-based model of HVAC operation was developed. PM measurements from cooking activities performed during the HOMEChem study conducted in a test house were used as input for the aerosol dynamics model. The HVAC system was modeled to maintain the house's thermal comfort and air recirculation. Further, an objective function was defined to optimize the model and penalize the exceedance of thresholds for IAP concentration and indoor temperature. The dynamic optimization minimizes an objective function constituting energy consumption, exposure, and thermal comfort. Parametric and sensitivity analysis were performed to quantify the tradeoff between the three components of the objective function. Results provide novel insight into the complex interdependence between personal exposure, building operation, and comfort.