1

The Need for Air Conditioning

1.1

The meaning of air conditioning

Full air conditioning implies the automatic control of an atmospheric environment either
for the comfort of human beings or animals or for the proper performance of some industrial
or scientific process. The adjective 'full' demands that the purity, movement, temperature
and relative humidity of the air be controlled, within the limits imposed by the design
specification. (It is possible that, for certain applications, the pressure of the air in the
environment may also have to be controlled.) Air conditioning is often misused as a term
and is loosely and wrongly adopted to describe a system of simple ventilation. It is really
correct to talk of air conditioning only when a cooling and dehumidification function is
intended, in addition to other aims. This means that air conditioning is always associated
with refrigeration and it accounts for the comparatively high cost of air conditioning.
Refrigeration plant is precision-built machinery and is the major item of cost in an air
conditioning installation, thus the expense of air conditioning a building is some four times
greater than that of only heating it. Full control over relative humidity is not always
exercised, hence for this reason a good deal of partial air conditioning is carded out; it is
still referred to as air conditioning because it does contain refrigeration plant and is therefore
capable of cooling and dehumidifying.
The ability to counter sensible and latent heat gains is, then, the essential feature of an
air conditioning system and, by common usage, the term 'air conditioning' means that
refrigeration is involved.

1.2

Comfort conditioning

Human beings are born into a hostile environment, but the degree of hostility varies with
the season of the year and with the geographical locality. This suggests that the arguments
for air conditioning might be based solely on climatic considerations, but although these
may be valid in tropical and subtropical areas, they are not for temperate climates with
industrialised social structures and rising standards of living.
Briefly, air conditioning is necessary for the following reasons. Heat gains from sunlight,
electric lighting and business machines, in particular, may cause unpleasantly high
temperatures in rooms, unless windows are opened. If windows are opened, then even
moderate wind speeds cause excessive draughts, becoming worse on the upper floors of
tall buildings. Further, if windows are opened, noise and dirt enter and are objectionable,
becoming worse on the lower floors of buildings, particularly in urban districts and industrial

The need for air conditioning

areas. In any case, the relief provided by natural airflow through open windows is only
effective for a depth of about 6 metres inward from the glazing. It follows that the inner
areas of deep buildings will not really benefit at all from opened windows. Coupled with
the need for high intensity continuous electric lighting in these core areas, the lack of
adequate ventilation means a good deal of discomfort for the occupants. Mechanical ventilation
without refrigeration is only a partial solution. It is true that it provides a controlled and
uniform means of air distribution, in place of the unsatisfactory results obtained with
opened windows (the vagaries of wind and stack effect, again particularly with tall buildings,
produce discontinuous natural ventilation), but tolerable internal temperatures will prevail
only during winter months. For much of the spring and autumn, as well as the summer,
the internal room temperature will be several degrees higher than that outside, and it
will be necessary to open windows in order to augment the mechanical ventilation. See
chapter 16.
The design specification for a comfort conditioning system is intended to be the framework
for providing a comfortable environment for human beings throughout the year, in the
presence of sensible heat gains in summer and sensible heat losses in winter. Dehumidification
would be achieved in summer but the relative humidity in the conditioned space would be
allowed to diminish as winter approached. There are two reasons why this is acceptable:
first, human beings are comfortable within a fairly large range of humidities, from about
65 per cent to about 20 per cent and, secondly, if single glazing is used it will cause the
inner surfaces of windows to stream with condensed moisture if it is attempted to maintain
too high a humidity in winter.
The major market for air conditioning is to deal with office blocks in urban areas.
Increasing land prices have led to the construction of deep-plan, high-rise buildings that
had to be air conditioned and developers found that these could command an increase in
rent that would more than pay for the capital depreciation and running cost of the air
conditioning systems installed.
Thus, a system might be specified as capable of maintaining an intemal condition of
22~ dry-bulb, with 50 per cent saturation, in the presence of an external summer state of
28~ dry-bulb, with 20~ wet-bulb, declining to an inside condition of 20~ dry-bulb,
with an unspecified relative humidity, in the presence of an external state of-2~ saturated
in winter.
The essential feature of comfort conditioning is that it aims to produce an environment
which is comfortable to the majority of the occupants. The ultimate in comfort can never
be achieved, but the use of individual automatic control for individual rooms helps
considerably in satisfying most people and is essential.

1.3

Industrial conditioning

Here the picture is quite different. An industrial or scientific process may, perhaps, be
performed properly only if it is carried out in an environment that has values of temperature
and humidity lying within well defined limits. A departure from these limits may spoil the
work being done. It follows that a choice of the inside design condition is not based on a
statistical survey of the feelings of human beings but on a clearly defined statement of what
is wanted.
Thus, a system might be specified to hold 21~ + 0.5~ with 50 per cent saturation
+2 89per cent, provided that the outside state lay between 29.5~ dry-bulb, with 21 ~ wetbulb a n d - 4~ saturated.