Comparison of Thermal Comfort by Radiant Heating and Convective Heating

Currently, convective heating with a heat-pump system, which has high energy efficiency, is popular for room heating. However, it is possible that energy savings using convective heating can be further improved using heat pumps that service both occupied and unoccupied spaces. Moreover, convective heating increases vertical temperature gradients in a room; thus, it is hard to say whether occupants are being provided with sufficient thermal comfort. The purpose of this study is to compare the thermal comfort provided by both radiant and convective heating systems. In this study, a small office room was modeled, and then temperature and airflow distributions in the room were calculated by Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations using ESP-r (Environmental research simulation software). Furthermore, distributions of Standard Effective Temperatures (SET * ) were calculated using the air temperature distributions obtained from the CFD simulations, which allows us to compare the thermal comfort provided by convective heating with that provided by radiant heating. The results show that radiant heating can provide satisfactory thermal comfort, even when the room air temperature is low. However, thermal comfort also depends on the temperature of blowing air, and blowing air must reach occupied regions; thus, only radiant heating cannot circulate sufficient air. In contrast, convective heating increases vertical temperature gradients in a room. Therefore, rather than using only radiant or convective heating, it may be more effective to combine them efficiently.