The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a floor heating and air conditioning system on thermal responses of the elderly. Eight elderly men and eight university students sat for 90 minutes in a chair under the following 3 conditions: air conditioning system (A), floor heating system (F) and no heating system (C). The air temperature of sitting head height for condition A was ...

With the urbanization process of the hot summer and cold winter (HSCW) zone in China, the energy consumption of space and water heating in urban residential buildings of the HSCW zone has increased rapidly. This study presents the energy efficiency and sustainability evaluation of various ways of space and water heating taking 10 typical cities in the HSCW zone as research cases. Two indicators...

Mechanical ventilation systems for controlling conditions in individual zones can move a constant or variable supply of conditioned air to handle all or some of the heating and cooling loads. They are classified as all-air, air-water, and all-water systems. All-air systems include single-duct, dual-duct and multizone. The systems can be designed to operate at Constant Air Volume (CAV) or Variab...

This paper assesses the role of heating entitlements in generating stark air quality differences across China. During the 1950-1980 central planning period, the Chinese government established free winter heating of homes and offices as a basic right via the provision of free coal fuel for boilers. The combustion of coal in boilers is associated with the release of air pollutants, especially tot...

A technique known as thermo-pneumatic (TP) pumping is used to pump fluids on a microfluidic compact disc (CD) back towards the CD center against the centrifugal force that pushes liquids from the center to the perimeter of the disc. Trapped air expands in a TP air chamber during heating, and this creates positive pressure on liquids located in chambers connected to that chamber. While the TP ai...

In this paper, a thermoelectric-assisted vapor compression cycle (TVCC) is proposed for applications in air-source heat pump systems. Compared with the basic vapor compression cycle (BVCC), the TVCC using a thermoelectric heat exchanger (THEX) could enhance the heating capacity of the system in an energy-efficient way. To demonstrate the performance characteristics of TVCC, a case study on this...