Simulation of Thermal Comfort Conditions of an Air-Conditioned Cafeteria in the Tropics

This paper studies the current thermal comfort condition of an air-conditioned cafeteria based on objective measurements and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling. Indoor comfort parameters such as temperature and airflow rate were simulated by a CFD tool. The results from field measurements and predicted values were then compared and contrasted. A simulated model that has the same geometrical configuration as the cafeteria was set as a benchmark model. Several additional models with different configuration of cafeteria layouts were proposed to achieve the required air temperature. It was found that the predicted results from the proposed models showed even distributions of airflow characteristics and temperature gradients. To maintain a thermally-acceptable air temperature of 28 degrees C, it is proposed that an additional air-conditioning unit be retrofitted to the current cafeteria layout.