DA-76-08-3 -- Factory Air Conditioning -- New Design Approach and Case Study PDF

According to a detailed survey made by Butler Manufacturing Co. of firms who built industrialbuildings in 1974, 69% contained mechanical air conditioning, 23% had more than 25% of thearea air-conditioned. 19% had more than 75% of the total area air-conditioned. While othersurveys may vary somewhat. It is quite apparent that union demands plus the obvious productionefficiency advantages from air-conditioned factories will dictate that more and more industrialspace is going to be air-conditioned in the future. This places an increasing demand on theenergy resources of this country at a time when there is a need to reduce consumption of energyand not increase it. It implies that any means which can improve the efficiency of factoryair conditioning will substantially benefit the energy picture.

There are basically three ways in which energy is wasted in factories:

1. Complete cooling of the entire space rather than spot or localized cooling only at work stations
2. Poor and inefficient design
3. Overdesign

A unique design approach has been developed by Dean & Reese which effectively deals with allthree of the above problems: It provides a more reliable way to arrive at the correct loadand thus not overdesign. It is based on localized cooling to cool the occupants only, andit employs a heavy duty central system with its obvious maintenance advantages.