Localized air-conditioning with occupancy control in an open office

Conditioning and ventilating open office spaces requires innovations as new buildings aim to be more intelligent, energy efficient and healthy. This paper explores the possibility of using a localized airflow to divide an open cubicle office into zones without partition walls. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model was used to simulate localized airflow in a cubicle office and both the energy and the indoor air quality concerns were addressed. The findings suggest that (1) localized airflow is plausible for zoning purposes, (2) localized airflow can result in both temperature and pollutant concentration segregations, (3) temperature segregations provide possible energy savings if coupled with occupancy-based HVAC control, and finally (4) limited air mixing between zones provide a novel way for better ventilation and indoor contaminant control.