Adaptation of a fan coil unit to operating conditions for optimum thermal comfort.

The work discussed here concerns the conditions of comfort obtained in a room cooled by a fan coil in relation to the form of air flow obtained. It is based both on practical experiment and on numerical simulation using CFD code. Combining these methods allowed a large number of configurations to be studied, in association with different operating conditions for the appliance. Using the results in combination enabled a relation to be established between the problem data, the device characteristics and the comfort conditions obtained. A simple rule was derived from this, which can be used in practice in air-conditioned premises, in order to make the right choice or scaling of the air-conditioning appliance depending upon its conditions of use.