Energy consumption of a novel floor radiant cooling system in large space buildings

Floor radiant cooling (FRC) systems are widely used in large space buildings due to excellent heat dissipation capabilities. However, existing engineering cases and studies have not adequately considered the significant impact of vertical indoor temperature stratification on dynamic load calculations, which directly affects system efficiency and energy consumption as well as indoor thermal comfort. In addition, there is short of effective strategies to mitigate condensation on floor surfaces. In this paper, a simulation study is conducted to evaluate the capacity of floor radiant cooling in conjunction with underfloor air supply air conditioning system (FRC/ UFASACs). A waiting hall is considered as the research object. The cooling load characteristics of waiting hall during cooling period are analyzed based on the temperature stratification. Simulations are conducted to study the characteristics of indoor thermal environment and energy consumption. The performance of the present FRC/ UFASACs is compared with all air supply air conditioning systems (AASACs), which demonstrates that FRC/ UFASACs has better energy saving capacity and economic efficiency during cooling period. The results indicate that FRC/UFASACs shows uniform distribution of temperature and humidity. When the supply air is set at 23 degrees C and 0.23 m/s, FRC/UFASACs offers better PMV and PPD values. During cooling period, FRC/UFASACs with variable supply air volume system consumes 14 % less energy than FRC/UFASACs with fixed supply air volume system, as well as saves 28.83 % more energy than AASACs. FRC/UFASACs provides a feasible solution for regulating the indoor thermal environment of large space buildings in hot summer and cold winter regions.