Building Thermal Load Studies For Resource Centre Using Equest

Abstract

This research studies on the suitable cooling load capacity at Resource centre (RC) of Universiti Kuala Lumpur Malaysia France Institute. The indoor climate for RC will not limit to satisfy the requirement of human thermal comfort only, but the books or archival collections as well. By using building thermal load simulation software, eQuest, we obtained the cooling capacity simulation results by keying in the details of the building into the software, such as the RC dimensions, weather data of Kuala Lumpur, building orientation, RC layout and building internal heat load, etc. The design or required indoor dry bulb temperature and relative humidity must be filled in the simulation software in order to simulate the desired cooling capacity to achieve the indoor climate. On the other hand, an indoor climate data logger which can log indoor dry bulb temperature and relative humidity was installed at a selected area for duration of a week; hence the indoor climate changing profile can be analyzed. The actual conditions in RC were compared with the eQuest simulation results. On top of that, the simulation results were compared with the existing air conditioning (AC) system capacity installed in the RC. Both the data logger and simulation results shown that the existing AC system cooling capacity is unable to achieve the recommended indoor climate for the studied RC. A correct and suitable AC system cooling capacity for a RC is very important. It will directly affect the building energy consumption and indoor climate requirement for users and books or archival collections.