New air-terminal diffusers for improving thermal comfort in railway compartment coaches
Citation
International journal on architectural science, v.4, no.2, 2003, pp. 43-59
Abstract
The aim of the present work is to conduct experimental measurement, within railway compartment coaches, of the thermofluidynamic performance of several diffusers devised and designed for increasing passengers' comfort. The motivation derives from a main concern of Italian Railways for improving the service provided to the travellers, with the constraint of optimizing the cost of the system upgrading. The proposed diffusers have been designed for combining two basic requirements for a railway air conditioning, i.e. comfort improvement together with reliability and robustness. Two types of diffusers have been installed inside the compartments: one is constituted by a grid with flaps properly oriented for avoiding high draughts in the occupied zone; the other is comprised of a central fixed grid and a lateral moving grid and is thus provided with the possibility of customizing comfort of passengers closer to the inlet air terminal, which is the most critical position in terms of comfort. Velocity, temperature and turbulence intensity have been measured for these two types of diffusers and have been compared with the values obtained through measurement performed with inlet air terminals currently existing on compartment coaches. The obtained results prove that optimization of air flows in non-conventional sites, as compartment coaches are, and thus improvement of velocity and temperature distribution, permit to achieve optimal comfort conditions for passengers.
(1) Introduction
(2) Experimental measurements
(3) Parameters describing thermal comfort
(4) Analysis of the results
(5) Conclusions
(6) References
Description
Building Type(s): Railways
Notes: Air conditioning
Subject
Type
Article
Format
Date
2003
Language
en