In the last two years a dramatic increase in the use of underfloor air conditioning has occurred in Europe and the Far East. This is partly due to greater awareness of the suitability of the system in commercial office use, but also because of changes in business demand. The paper will use examples of projects, which currently use the underfloor system to highlight the customer and developer benefits that are available. It is primarily concerned with the concepts and major design issues that surround the system. These include the impact on construction cost, in addition to program and life costing (analysis). It will draw on research undertaken on the normal performance of concrete slabs, and how these can be used as thermal stores along with computer simulated temperature pick up in floor voids. Floor supply and return systems (Constant volume supply/variable volume introduction) and floor supply and room or ceiling return systems (Variable volume supply/variable volume introduction) are discussed and compared with conventional ceiling based systems. Issues such as air quality, energy consumption, environmental impacts and demand on world resources, staff comfort and other topical matters related to current construction techniques will be raised throughout.
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