Field tests were performed in a office to (1) investigate the desktop conditioning system (DTC) performed in situations when demand for the local capabilities may be increased; and (2) compare DTC performance to that of a conventional overhead system under similar high heat load conditions.

When the wall thermostat temperature was maintained at 26°C to 27.5°C, DTC was able to maintain average temperatures in the workstations to be 1 to 2°C lower than the thermostat temperature. Under increased activity levels, DTC could be adjusted to maintain similar comfort conditions, although each subject had different responses to the same environment.

This report describes the results of research completed to date during Phases I and II of the project. The report is organized in terms of the major type of work that have taken place. These are: 1) Laboratory studies of air movement and comfort. 2) Review of the influences of humidity on health, particularly as they impact evaporative cooling and naturally cooled architecture. 3) Development of a computer model of the human body sensitive to localized effects of air movement, localized radiant feilds, and other environmental influences. 4) Assistance with the workshops to create compressor-free house designs.

Climate change and the urgency of decarbonizing the built environment are driving technological innovation in the way we deliver thermal comfort to occupants. These changes, in turn, seem to be setting the directions for contemporary thermal comfort research. This article presents a literature review of major changes, developments, and trends in the field of thermal comfort research over the last 20 years. One of the main paradigm shift was the fundamental conceptual reorientation that has taken place in thermal comfort thinking over the last 20 years; a shift away from the physically based determinism of Fanger’s comfort model toward the mainstream and acceptance of the adaptive comfort model. Another noticeable shift has been from the undesirable toward the desirable qualities of air movement. Additionally, sophisticated models covering the physics and physiology of the human body were developed, driven by the continuous challenge to model thermal comfort at the same anatomical resolution and to combine these localized signals into a coherent, global thermal perception. Finally, the demand for ever increasing building energy efficiency is pushing technological innovation in the way we deliver comfortable indoor environments. These trends, in turn, continue setting the directions for contemporary thermal comfort research for the next decades.

This final report presents the results of research completed during Phase III of the project, "Localized Thermal Distribution (LTD) for Office Buildings," sponsored by the California Institute for Energy Efficiency. The project team consisted of researchers from the University of California, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, and Humboldt State University. Work was performed in three task areas: (1)Whole-Building Energy Simulations, (2)Field Studies, and (3)LTD Engineering and Applications Guide Outline. Following this Executive Summary, the final report is presented in four separate parts, each addressing one of the above task areas with two describing work on the two separate field studies.