Improvement scenario 3: Revolving doors Introduction Currently the mech. eng.

building operates swings door in the four exits of the building. Swings doors are cheap to install require little maintenance throughout its life-time and uses low amount of useful floor space. However, the energy efficiency is very low due to the large volume of heated air lost through air leakage to the environment. The annual energy usage on heating is around 175000 kWh/year in the mech. eng. building. By replacing the swing doors with revolving doors, air leakage could be reduced thus leading to higher energy efficiency.

Assumptions In order to calculate the potential energy savings by implementing revolving doors, the current air leakage through the swings doors is assessed first. A study was conducted and published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on revolving door usage on university campus and its relation with energy usage. Using the MIT study, data collected for the mech. eng. building and the following assumptions the air leakage can be calculated for the building. Average foot traffic through the building is 600 people per hour and doors are operated for 10 hours per day. Density of air is assumed to be constant. Room temperature is assumed to be constant in the whole building. Average wind speed and temperature can be taken for individual months of the year. The data produced by MIT can be applied for the mech. eng. Building such as energy consumption reduction percentage and graphs/correlations produced to calculate air leakage. Example of the data used is shown in table mehh below.

Figure mehhh- Swings doors in mechanical/Civil engineering building Data collection To be able to assess the possibility implementation of the revolving doors, the foot traffic through all the exits of the building were measured during the morning and afternoon for an hour each as it is important to determine how often the swings doors are used. It was found that the average foot traffic in the morning was around 500 and in the afternoon it was around 800. Of which around 75% of the foot traffic was through the front and back entrance of the by buildings.

Table mehh- Energy savings comparison (Lee et al., 2006) Revolving Door Usage Saving of annual Energy consumption 14.5% 38.7% 74.0% 50% 75% 100%

Calculations The following equations were used to calculate the air leakage through the swing doors from the MIT study (Lee et al., 2006).

(Equation smeh) ( smeh) (Equation smeh) (Equation blah)

Nomenclature: = total pressure differential = wind pressure = stack pressure difference =unit conversion factor, ft.s2/lb / = temperature indoor/outdoor, R = outdoor air density, lb/ft3 = gravitational acceleration, ft/s2 = height of neutral pressure level, ft =height of point of interest, ft =unit conversion factor, ft.s3/lb.mph2 = wind surface pressure coefficient = density of air, lb/ft3 = specific heat capacity, J/kgK = volume of air, m3 U = wind speed, mph = density of air, kg/m3 / = temperature indoor/outdoor, C Equations smeh are used to calculate the total pressure differential, which can be used to find the air leakage from the graphs produced by MIT. Equation blah can then be used to calculate the heat transferred from the air leakage. Following the calculations, the total air leakage per year from all four entrances was found to around 11200000m3. The heat transferred from that calculated volume of air leakage is approximately 56000kWh.

Analysis of results

) (Equation

The energy required to heat the volume of air leaked through the swing doors were calculated to be around 56000kWh, taking the price of gas to be 5p (British gas, 2013), the money required for heating that air is around 2800. From table mehh, the figure shows if 75% of the foot traffic used revolving doors then up to 38.7% of the annual energy consumption can be reduced. From data collection, it was measured that around 75% of the foot traffic uses the front and back door; there by implementing the revolving doors in those locations the correlation produced by MIT can be taken. The mech. Eng. Building could potential save 22000kWh/year of heating energy, which equates to 1100/year. The carbon emission saved from reducing 22000kWh/year is 11.3 tonnes, which gives a potential reduction in energy land by 2.1 HA. The revolving doors will have an installation cost of around 1600 for the front and back entrances of the building (Alibaba, 2013), with the energy saving calculated, the potential payback time of this improvement scenario is only 1.5 years.