Glick+Glass

= The Glass is Greener on the Other Side = An evaluation of the Marilyn K. Glick Center for Glass Geothermal System Brittany Sublette, Cody Roth, Kathleen Gessinger, and Kaylee Ross. Image of Glick Glass Center

**__ Abstract __**  The Glick Glass Center is a new building on the Ball State University campus that has a HVAC computer system that capitalizes on the new geothermal program which was recently integrated into the campus. Our study focused on how well the geothermal system responds to the thermal comfort needs of its occupants through its integration with the HVAC system. Determining how well these systems are integrated was pulled from a detailed analysis of field data as well as technical information from the geothermal controlled HVAC system. The field analysis measured the surface temperatures of the walls enclosing the studio space, the temperature of the air being blown out of the ventilation system, and the thermal comfort of the occupants in the room through surveys of the building occupants. The temperature measurements were taken with an infrared thermometer and the thermal comfort aspect was evaluated through the use of a survey to determine each individual’s own personal comfort level.  After concluding all of our technical study, we compared our results with the online computer data that controls the geothermal system for the Glick building. This gave us an understanding for what the GSHP system was actually doing at that moment to control the temperature in the studio space. Analyzing our results helped us to reinforce our hypothesis that the GSHP better distributes air throughout the space to provide a more comfortable environment.

**__ Introduction __** The Marilynn Glick Center for Glass is a new building on Ball State University’s Campus that was completed in 2010. The building is located on the south side of Christy Woods and across the street from Ball Memorial Hospital. The Glick Center is a part of the Art’s Department of the University where students go to work with and create things with glass. There are a lot of large pieces of equipment such as kilns in the building that consume a lot of energy and can drastically change the interior temperature of several segmented rooms. To deal with this high demand for energy, the building is the first on campus to integrate the new ground-source heat pump project into its HVAC system (3.). Since the Glick Center is the first building on campus to make this transition, we as a group decided that this would be an interesting building to focus on in our case study. Our goal with regards to the GSHP system at the Glick Center was to see how well the system responds to evenly distributing air throughout the space to meet the occupants thermal comfort needs.

. Figure 1: Map of Glick Glass center in relation to Ball States campus. Figure 2: Ratio Architects evening rendering of exterior.(6.)

**__ Hypothesis __** We predict that the HVAC system integrated with the GSHP system is more efficient at evenly distributing air throughout the Glick Center to provide a more comfortable environment for its users.

**__ Methodology __** The first step in our process was to meet with Michael Hernandez, the building administrator, to get a little background on the building (1.). He provided us with the permission to conduct our study in the building. He also gave us the name of the engineer who designed the ground-source heat pump, Brenton Baumer (2.). After meeting with Brenton, we had a better understanding of the system to conduct our study in the building.

Figure 3: Glick Center Floor Plan (5.)

Figure 4: Interior perspective of undergraduate studio space.

To test the effectiveness of the geothermal system in the Marilyn Glick Center, we based our studies on the main room of the building, the studio space, to test the thermal comfort of the space both from surveys and gathered data (4.). We used an infrared thermometer to measure the average temperature of the four surrounding walls of the “Under Graduate Studio”. To find the best overall results we went to take these measurements every Tuesday and Thursday at three thirty p.m. Taking these measurements twice a week was helpful in gathering a large amount of data that was used to analyze the results.



Figure 5: Infrared Digital Thermometer Gun with Laser Sight (7.)

Brenton Baumer has access to the current conditions of the HVAC system in the Glick building and sent us the computer recorded conditions every Tuesday and Thursday at the same time we went to measure the interior conditions of the space. Each week we recorded the average surface temperature of the four walls enclosing the studio space to get a feel for the temperature of the space. The results from the field analysis and the computer data gave us an understanding of how well the system responded to the occupants needs by evenly distributing a target temperature throughout the space. We also distributed a survey to each of the building occupants to get a feel for their overall comfort of the room at that given time (3.). The survey had a scale on it that ranged from cold to hot, in which hot was a 3+ on a (-3, -2, -1, 0, +1, +2, +3) scale.

Figure 6: Example thermal comfort surveys


 * [[image:fig1.jpg align="center"]]

Figure 7: The team will focus on finding measurements for the center portion of the building “Under Grad Studios” (2.)

Figure 8: Example of a screen shot of the controls for the geothermal system in the Glick building. (2.) Figure 9: Example of the energy cost of the Glick building in August 2011. (2.)

**__ Conclusion __** With all of our data recorded, we were able to make a graph illustrating the conditions of the studio space, and another graph plotting the thermal comfort of the building occupants. Figure 10: Graph of the Comfort Levels Figure 11: Graph of Data Points

Based on the graph, the GSHP integrated with the HVAC system does an effective job of equally distributing air throughout the space, creating an overall ambient temperature. The system also was able to keep the studio space at a constant temperature over the entire length of our study with lasted about 3 months. Because the interior of the building stayed relatively the same throughout the study, the thermal comfort of its occupants was fairly comfortable. The occupants were never extremely cold or extremely hot during the duration of the study. They were not far off of the “comfortable” level of zero. So as far as evenly distributing air throughout the room, the GSHP system does a very effective job, which in turn leads to an average temperature of the room. When it comes to meeting the thermal comfort needs of its occupants, it is also very efficient at creating a thermally comfortable environment.

**Field Test Log:**

**October 25, 2011: Tuesday @3:30PM** Average Room temperature: Thermal comfort level: Weather: Sunny 70 degrees Wind speed: 18 mph 28% humidity
 * North Wall- 72.4 degrees
 * East Wall- 73 degrees
 * South wall- 72.9 degrees
 * West Wall73 degrees
 * Temperature from the vents: 60-61 degrees
 * 6 surveys were recorded with an average of 9
 * o (highest: 18, Lowest:-18)
 * Layered clothing: sweatshirts, sweatpants, Jeans, closed-toe shoes

**October 27, 2011: Thursday @3:30pm** Average Room temperature: Thermal comfort level: Weather: cloudy 46 degrees Wind speed: 14 mph 22% humidity
 * North Wall- 72.5 degrees
 * East Wall- 71.4 degrees
 * South wall- 73 degrees
 * West Wall71.5 degrees
 * Temperature from the vents: 64-70.4 degrees
 * 9 surveys were recorded with an average of 1
 * o (highest: 27, Lowest:-27)
 * Layered clothing: thicker layers, sweatshirts, sweatpants, Jeans, closed-toe shoes, hats, scarves
 * Electric lights were on
 * feels like 40 degrees

**November 1, 2011: Tuesday @3:30pm** Average Room temperature: Thermal comfort level: Weather: Sunny 53 degrees Wind speed: 10 mph north 48% humidity
 * North Wall- 71.9-73.6 degrees
 * East Wall- 71-72 degrees
 * South wall- 72.1-73.4 degrees
 * West Wall-71.4-72 degrees
 * Temperature from the vents: 65 degrees
 * Mixed survey results mostly based on layers of clothing
 * Layered clothing: jeans, long sleeves, hats
 * Electric lights were on
 * feels like 40 degrees

**November 3, 2011: Thursday @3:30pm** Average Room temperature: Thermal comfort level: Weather: Rainy 48 degrees Wind speed: 10 mph north 89% humidity
 * North Wall- 72.3 -71.9 degrees
 * East Wall- 71.5-70.9 degrees
 * South wall- 72 degrees
 * West Wall-71.8-71.7 degrees
 * Temperature from the vents: 70.3-65.1 degrees
 * Slight chilled
 * Layered clothing: jeans, long sleeves, hats, sweatshirts
 * Drinking hot coffee
 * feels like 45 degrees

**November 8, 2011: Tuesday @3:30pm** Average Room temperature: Thermal comfort level: Weather: 67.9 degrees
 * North Wall- 71.1-72 degrees
 * East Wall- 71.7-72.5 degrees
 * South wall- 71.7-72.3 degrees
 * West Wall-69.7-70.5 degrees
 * Temperature from the vents: 60.9-68.6 degrees
 * Doors were open for cross ventilation
 * Comfortable
 * T shirts, jeans, shorts, open toe shoes
 * 45.6% humidity

**November 10, 2011: Thursday @3:30pm** Average Room temperature: Thermal comfort level: Weather: 41.3 degrees
 * North Wall- 73.1-73.3 degrees
 * East Wall- 71.4-72.2 degrees
 * South wall- 72.2-72.6 degrees
 * West Wall- 71.4-72.3 degrees
 * Temperature from the vents: 97.9-71.3 degrees
 * Sweatshirts, t-shirts
 * A few thick jackets
 * Very cold outside comfortable inside
 * 44.1% humidity

Sources:
 * 1) Michael Herandez, e-mail message to author, September 15, 2011.
 * 2) Brenton Baumer, e-mail message to author, September 15, 2011.
 * 3) “Chillers Heaters | Dedicated | Heat- recovery Chiller,” 2011, [].
 * 4) “Heat Pumps”, [].
 * 5) Floor Plan, http://www.munciecvb.org/images/uploads/glick_mini_campaign.pdff, 2010
 * 6) Rendering, http://www.munciecvb.org/images/uploads/glick_mini_campaign.pdf, 2008
 * 7) Infrared Digital Thermometer Gun with Laser Sight, http://championser.blog.com/2011/08/31/infrared-digital-thermometer-gun-with-laser-sight/ ||