Building Environment and Thermal Comfort
The building environment is made up of physical infrastructure, mechanical and electrical systems connected by a complex relationship. The comfort and productivity of building occupants are subject to the influence of different environmental considerations like temperature, humidity, ventilation, lighting and different pollutants. With climate change effects, it is also imperative to cut down energy consumption and design buildings that are comfortable with natural and mechanical ventilation even in the hot and humid tropics.
Understanding Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) helps architects, building owners and facility managers creating more comfortable environments both for sustainability and for the well-being of its occupants.
Indoor Environment Quality (IEQ) Monitoring System
The factors that define IEQ are: thermal environment, lighting, acoustics and indoor air quality (IAQ). Since 1970, LSI Lastem has been producing instrumentation for the evaluation of environments based on the thermal perception of the occupants, the quantity of light, the evaluation of pollutants and ventilation.
The IEQ monitoring system is a highly flexible and adaptable system with below sensors/parameters of choice, to fulfil requirements of ISO 7726:1998 Ergonomics of the thermal environment — Instruments for measuring physical quantities:
- Air temperature ESU403.1 /surface temperature
- Psychrometer ESU102 for humidity and dew point
- Air flow meter ESV307 for turbulence intensity
- Illuminance/ luxmeter ESR000 for human eye response
- Net radiometer ESR231 for radiant asymmetry
- Heat flow/heat flux meter ESR240 for U-factor
- Differential pressure ESP024 for ventilation efficiency
- Noise level PRSLA1000
- Indoor air quality sensors (CO, CO2, O2, VOCs, Formaldehyde)
Tailored to the building applications, APAQ Group is able to design data acquisition system both for research monitoring, short-term audits, and multi-point measurement system for operation control and facilities management.
Multi-parametric Sensor
LSI Lastem Sphensor is a new family of integrated multi-parameter sensors, designed for real-time long-term monitoring of all the main parameters of Indoor Environmental Quality. It is possible to simultaneously measure thermo-hygrometric parameters such as temperature and relative humidity, environmental parameters such as atmospheric pressure, illumination for 5 different orientations, UV-A radiation and air quality in terms of concentration of VOCs, CO2 and PM (1, 2.5, 4, 10).
The Sphensor units are able to send the data with IOT protocols (MQTT, JSON) to the Sphensor Gateway through a robust mesh radio network. The Sphensor Gateway, in addition to acting as a buffer memory, proceeds with an initial processing of data, which can be transmitted to the Client’s server, APAQ Group server or to the cloud software.
The high-performance measurement accuracy, combined with a sophisticated and elegant design, make it the ideal solution for public, service and residential buildings, hospitals, schools and universities, shopping centers, laboratories and productions, as well as for buildings of cultural heritage like museums and archaeological sites.
Omni-directional Hot-wire Anemometer
Hot-wire anemometers ESV108.1 provide the highest sensitivity measurement to building ventilation, with a starting threshold of 0.01m/s. These sensors can be used in indoor environments, ducts, ventilation outlets. It can be hand-held or it can be mounted on a tripod during longer measurements. When the support for the directional measurement is removed, this sensor has a good response to plane omnidirectional air flow which arrive on the hot wire from any directions within 300°.
Because of the omnidirectional sensitivity, this sensor is very suitable in applications where the air flow is not directional as in Heat stress and Thermal comfort applications. Using air speed values, LSI LASTEM’s data loggers can calculate directly air flow (mass and volume) and number of air changes.
LSI Lastem offers the unique design of hot-wire anemometer with replaceable sensor head SPMCA1004 for easy repair of broken wire, and extendable sensor head for more flexible deployment.