Alternative personalized ventilation

•New personalized ventilation method was developed (ALTAIR).•Laboratory measurements were performed comparing ALTAIR with traditional ventilation systems.•Subjective thermal comfort and CO2 concentration were analyzed during experiments.

Draught is usually avoidable if proper thermal comfort is to be obtained. Nevertheless in hot environments people try to improve their thermal comfort increasing artificially the air movement around the head using fans. Using personalized ventilation systems extreme high values of air or mean radiant temperatures, or even high relative humidity values can be compensated by air flow velocity. Taking into account that the number of cold receptors in the skin exceeds the number of warm receptors and the velocity of cold information exceeds around ten times the velocity of warm information an innovative personalized ventilation system was developed. The air flow is coming alternatively from three different directions and the frequency of direction changing might be set on request. Experiments have shown that in high temperature environments using the developed equipment neutral or even slightly cold sensations might be obtained.