A museum storeroom air-conditioning system employing the temperature and humidity independent control device in the cooling coil

For conservation of cultural heritage, HVAC systems are often necessary for museums to maintain suitable indoor environment with precise control of indoor thermal-hygrometric parameters and air velocity. Large deviations of these parameters from the design values should be prevented, because they may cause degradation of artworks. So, more energy consumption is inevitable.This paper presents a novel temperature and humidity independent control (THIC) device and its associated control method in a museum storeroom air-conditioning system. Compared with the conventional HVAC system with the cooling coil (CC), where the apparatus dew point is usually fixed, this system adopting the THIC device can achieve independent temperature and humidity control in an energy saving way. The experiment study shows that this system can reduce the energy consumption by 21.7%, compared with the conventional HVAC systems using reheat and humidify for an indoor thermal-hygrometric environment, and the temperature and humidity in the storeroom are also kept stable and at a higher precision level.

► A temperature and humidity independent control (THIC) device for cooling coils is developed.
► The THIC device can achieve independent temperature and humidity control with higher precision.
► Reliable PID-based control logic for the THIC is developed.
► The THIC device can save running energy consumption by about 20–30%.