Green engineering solutions

for comfort indoor environment

Green engineering solutions for comfort indoor environment

The term Green Building has become a buzz word of late particularly in Asia because government agencies and NGOs
are highlighting the dangers of global warming and the need to conserve energy to reduce carbon emissions.
The word green implies the concept of being environmental friendly. To design a building that is considered green
requires the building to be made from materials that are not harmful to the environment and adopt services that are
energy efcient without compromising the need to provide a comfortable indoor environment. Building designers
therefore need to introduce ways to minimise energy consumption by adopting new energy efcient technologies that
help protect the environment.
Various schemes have been introduced to rate how well this is being done. LEED is an acronym for the US Green
Building Councils Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating program. This program comprises a certication rating system for an entire building project, planning, commissioning, and product selection. Malaysia has its very
own rating scheme, the Green Building Index GBI that has been specically designed for our tropical climate.
TROX as an international leading manufacturer of air conditioning components and systems is proud to be a part of this
movement. TROX has a range of solutions available from its facility in Seremban that have been specically developed
to provide indoor comfort whilst reducing energy consumption. These include;

Variable air volume (VAV)

Displacement ventilation and Under Floor air Distribution (UFAD)
Chilled beams

Variable Air Volume (VAV)

VAV systems maintain thermal comfort in a building by varying the amount of cold air supplied. This is achieved by
using variable frequency drive (VFD) to control the fan speed. The fan speed is reduced when cooling load decreases
and in doing so, the energy consumed by the fan motor is reduced exponentially. Such systems are suitable for buildings with highly variable loads such as shopping malls, airport terminals and exhibition halls. Compared to conventional constant air volume (CAV) systems, VAV systems can save as much as 30% of the energy consumed by a typical
CAV system.
With VAV system, buildings can easily be sub-divided into zones according to their intended usage and good thermal
control can be maintained economically within each zone by the use of VAV terminal units which control the airow in
each zone to suit the variable cooling or heating load.

Displacement Ventilation and Under Floor Air Distribution (UFAD)

Displacement ventilation systems are described as thermal displacement ventilation (TDV) systems by the American
Society of Heating, Refrigerating, Ventilating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE). These systems have high
1
contamination removal efciencies and also reduce energy consumption for the HVAC system and therefore improves
indoor air quality (IAQ) refer to Figure 1 on page 3.
Conventional mixed ow HVAC systems are designed to dilute the warm contaminated air in the room evenly with the
cool clean supply air. With displacement ventilation systems cool clean supply air is introduces into the room at low
level. This cooler air cascades across the room at low velocity. As the supply air picks up heat source from the occupants and equipment, a convective plume is created. This carries with it airborne contaminants to high level. Hence,
creating a layer of warm and contaminated air above the occupied zone where it should be extracted refer to Figure 3
on page 3.
1. ASHRAE Fundamentals Handbook 2009

Under Floor Air Distribution (UFAD) systems performs in a similar way to displacement ventilation systems but the supply air is introduced from the raised oor
system at higher velocity. Hence, this necessitates the use of high induction oor
diffusers to minimise draft in the occupied zone.
In tropical climates where the perimeter zones have higher heat gain fan assisted
induction oor diffusers are used to increase the air ow rate through each terminal outlet. These fan assisted terminal (FAT) units can operate automatically to
regulate the fan speed to improve thermal comfort and safe energy.

3
m

Temperature
Prole

Velocity
Prole

Pollutant Concentration
Prole

H1

20

22
Mixed Flow

24 C

0.1

0.2

0.3 m/s 0.2

0.6

1.0

Displacement Ventilation

Figure 1: Comparison between mixed ow and displacement ventilation systems

Figure 2: Conventional mixed ow system

Figure 3: Displacement ventilation system

Chilled Beams Systems

The chilled beam system is one the latest innovations to make its way to the
Asian market. Popular in Europe and Australia for more than a decade, the system
involves placing cooling coils at the ceiling level to cool the rising warm air. The
cooled air then gently descends to occupant level, providing a pleasant cooling
effect with minimal air movement. There are two basic types of chilled beams:
active and passive. Active systems tie into the rooms primary air supply ducts,
mixing supply air with existing air that is cooled by the coils. Passive technology
relies entirely on the natural convection process, whereby warm air rises to the
coils, is cooled, and then descends freely without the assistance of fans. The most
common misconception about chilled beam technology is that the indoor humidity
will cause condensate on the beams especially in hot and humid climates like that
of Malaysia. Building controls have advanced to the point where condensation is
no longer an issue. Active chilled beams reduce the amount of supply air required
whilst maintaining an acceptable comfort condition within the occupied space. As
a result, HVAC plant and duct sizes are reduced, coupled with a reduction in
energy consumption, when compared to conventional HVAC systems.
TROX DID 632
Active Chilled Beam

A report on the Tahoe Centre2 refer to Table 1 below, concluded that active
chilled beams have the potential of lowering both construction and energy costs.
3
A more recent report by Weidner, Doerger and Walsh demonstrated that by
combining UFAD with passive chilled beam a signicant reduction in the overall
capital and operating costs can be obtained leading to LEED certication.

Table1:
Comparison between a VAV system and an active
chilled beams system for the Tahoe Centre
$125,000

Total Annual Energy Costs

$100,000

Cooling
Fans

$75,000

$50,000

Heating

57%
Savings

Cooling
Fans

$25,000

Heating
$0
Baseline

Designed

2. ASHRAE Journal, January 2007

3. ASHRAE Journal, December 2009

Application Experience
SHELL Business Service Centre
The Shell BSC Building is the rst building in Malaysia to be pre-certied with the
prestigious internationally recognised LEED GOLD certication, making it the rst
Green building in Cyberjaya. The building is scheduled for completion by the end of
2010 and will be fully occupied early in 2011.
This project utilises an UFAD system with TROX circular oor induction diffusers and
fan terminal units which improves indoor air quality and reduce energy consumption
when compared to conventional CAV mixed ow systems.

SHELL BSC Building;

Cyberjaya, Malaysia

Sasana Kijang Bank Negara Building

This project also utilises a UFAD system tted with TROX fan assisted high induction
circular diffusers and passive circular oor diffusers to attain better indoor air quality
and reduce energy consumption. The fan assisted diffusers have auto fan speed
controllers that are linked to the Building Management System.
Sasana Kijang Bank Negara;
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Tahoe Centre for Environmental Sciences

The ASHRAE Journal January 2007 issue reported that this building utilizes an active
chilled beam system which, has reduced the size of the air handling units and
ductwork as much as 40% and eliminated the need for terminal reheat. It also
claimed that chilled beam system made it possible to reduce the HVAC energy for
the building by 57%.
Tahoe Centre; Nevada, USA
(Source: ASHRAE Journal; January 2007)

Goods Shed North

This is a heritage building located in the Melbournes dockland which has been
refurbished to include an innovative HVAC engineering solution for which it attained
5-Star certication under the Australian Green Star Green Building rating system. It
utilises both TROX active chilled beams and oor diffusers for its UFAD system.

Goods Shed North;

Melbourne, Australia
(Source: Ecolibrium, June 2010)

Siemens Centre Beijing

This is a 123-meter tower with 30 oors built on an 18.000 square meter site and
has a ve-story annex with interior courtyards added. This building stands out with
its striking curved glass faade. The entrance area is spacious with a two-storey
lobby including a reception area, waiting and presentation areas, and linked conference area. The top oors of the high-rise as well as the space in the annex are used
entirely for ofces. The exible ofce concept caters for the full range of work
models and ofce layouts. The building was opened in may 2008. This building is
tted with 1,417 TROX DID 600B active chilled beams.

Siemens Building; Beijing, China

Subject to change without notice. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TROX Malaysia Sdn Bhd. (278360-V) 2011

TROX Malaysia Sdn Bhd (278360-V)

20 Persiaran Bunga Tanjung 1
Senawang Land Industrial Park
70400 Seremban, Malaysia
Tel. (+6) 06-678 8188
Fax. (+6) 06-678 8288
Email enquiry@troxapo.com
www.troxapo.com