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Article history:
Received 6 August 2014
Received in revised form
19 November 2014
Accepted 21 November 2014
Available online 13 December 2014
India has diverse climatic conditions and study of adaptation can play important role for dening
thermal comfort conditions in naturally ventilated buildings. Therefore, a eld study of thermal comfort
was carried out in thirty well ventilated residential and ofce buildings in composite climate region of
India. The objective of the study is to evaluate the thermal environmental conditions and quantify
thermal adaptation for occupants of these buildings. The study ascertains thermal neutrality and thermal
acceptability and compares adaptation with eld studies referred by a pool of researchers and scientists.
The methodology of the study was through questionnaire administered to building occupants to record
sensations and preferences for thermal environment variables. Simultaneously, physical measurements
of environment variables were recorded considering class-II protocol of eld measurements.
During the study, the responses collected were 1811. The comfort temperature of the group was
27.21 C for all seasons. The effects of seasonal variations on neutral temperature were also determined;
respondents felt neutral at 25.6 C, 27.0 C and 29.4 C during winter, moderate and summer seasons,
respectively. Acceptable humidity and air velocity were 36% and 0.44 m/s for all seasons. Thermal
acceptability for 90% and 80% were higher than the limits dened by comfort standards. Thermal
acceptability reected that study subjects were more adaptive to the thermal environment. The study
observed that heat balance model of thermal comfort overestimated and underestimated thermal
sensation during warm and cool thermal conditions, respectively. Furthermore, the study determines
relationship between room temperature and comfort temperature with outdoor temperature.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Naturally ventilated buildings
Thermal environment
Thermal neutrality
Thermal adaptation
Comfort temperature
1. Introduction
Unconditioned buildings are of great interest to designers, architects, and building owners due to less energy use compared to
air-conditioned buildings throughout the building's life span. Occupants from naturally ventilated buildings encounter variable
environment throughout the daytime and use available controls to
make their indoor environment thermally comfortable [1]. Thermal
comfort is dened as that condition of mind which expresses
satisfaction with the thermal environment and is assessed by
subjective evaluation [2,3]. In contemporary thermal comfort
research, there are two approaches to developing predictive
18
Jaipur varies for more than 180 days (more than six months), and
that is why the city is considered under composite climatic zone of
India [21].
The present study is conducted in naturally ventilated buildings
such as institutes, ofces, and hostels. Naturally ventilated or free
running buildings are those that have operable windows and no
mechanical Heating, Ventilating and Air-Conditioning (HVAC) systems. Among the thirty survey buildings, seventeen buildings operated purely on natural ventilation mode whereas thirteen buildings
were mixed mode type. Fig. 1 shows the photographs of some of the
survey buildings. The study buildings were found to be constructed
by conventional construction materials such as bricks and stones for
walls and Reinforced Cement Concrete (RCC) structure for roof construction, respectively. The conventional roof construction prescribes
different construction layer of 100 mme150 mm RCC slab, cement
mortar with sand and gravel of 25 mm, and 6 mm cork/burnt clay tiles
on top of the roof surface. Conventional wall is constructed using
brick/stone of 200 mme230 mm and gypsum plaster of
12 mme15 mm thickness on both sides of the wall [22,23].
The survey buildings provided adaptive controls such as opening or closing of window, door and ventilator, switch on/off fan, and
fan speed regulator. Very few buildings offered the use of evaporative cooling during harsh summer weather conditions. Fig. 2
depicts the adaptive controls and survey environment of some of
the study buildings.
Single clear glass windows allow more heat to enter the building
spaces, and warmer surface temperature inuences people's thermal comfort, particularly if occupants are sitting close to the window [23]. Window assemblies from 95% of the buildings had single
clear glass of 4-8 mm thickness and very few (0.5%) were double
glazed windows. Other window glass types included single tinted
glass and single clear glass with reective coatings. During the
study, a note was made of the solar exposure (exposed or unexposed) to building faade and roof. A total of 27% samples were
collected from roof exposed built spaces whereas remaining (73%)
samples corresponded to spaces under unexposed roof surfaces.
2.2. Subjects responses and sample size
The questionnaire was developed from a previous study i.e.
Dhaka et al. [24] and the same questionnaire was administered to
occupants of the study buildings to record their responses.
Questionnaire was used to collect sensation and preference
votes for thermal environment variables such as room temperature,
relative humidity, and air velocity on a seven-point sensation scale
and ve-point preference scale, respectively. During the eld study,
the researcher rather than the occupant lled out a form. This form
was used to measure environment variables, and observe the surrounding conditions of study subject. The study was conducted
between 9:00 am to 6:00 pm for the period of April 11, 2011 to May
10, 2013. The subjects demonstrated an interest to be a part of this
study and took approximately 10 min to ll up the questionnaire.
Table 1 demonstrates the sensation and preference scale and their
descriptions on seven and ve point scale, respectively. During the
study, 2859 samples were collected; of these, which 64% (N 1811)
samples correspond to naturally ventilated buildings and are analysed in the following sections.
2.3. Physical measurements of environment variables
Simultaneously with the questionnaire, physical measurements
of environment variables were made nearby to the respondent
using high accuracy instruments. The measurements taken were at
approximately 1.1 m height from oor level, following class-II
protocol [9,25]. Under this protocol, thermal environmental
19
Fig. 1. Photographs of buildings chosen for the eld study of thermal comfort.
variable (Ta, Tg, Va, RH, clo, met) were recorded at the same time and
place as the thermal questionnaire administered to the occupants.
Measurements may not have been made at different heights above
oor level as specied in ASHRAE (1992) and ISO (1994) standards.
20
Table 1
Sensations and preferences scale for temperature, humidity and air velocity.
Scale
Temperature
Humidity
Air velocity
Temperature
Humidity
Air velocity
3
2
Hot
Warm
Very humid
Moderately humid
e
Much warmer
e
Very humid
e
Moderately moving
1
0
1
2
3
Slightly warm
Neutral
Slightly cool
Cool
Cold
Slightly humid
Acceptable
Slightly dry
Moderately dry
Very dry
Very high
Moderately
high
Slightly high
Just right
Slightly low
Moderately low
Very low
A bit warmer
No change
A bit cooler
Much cooler
e
A bit humid
No change
A bit dry
Very dry
e
Slightly moving
No Change
Slightly low
Moderately low
e
Table 2
Description of instrument used in the eld study.
S No.
Parameter
Instrument
Make
Range
Accuracy
1
2
3
4
6
7
8
Outdoor temperature
Air temperature
Globe temperature (Diameter 150 mm)
Relative humidity (RH)
Air velocity
CO2
Lighting level
Weather station
480 VAC
480 VAC
480 VAC
480 VAC
435-2
LX-103
Virtual instrumentation
Testo
Testo
Testo
Testo
Testo
Lutron
40 to 123.8 C
20 to 70 C
0 to 120 C
0 to 100 %
0 to 5 m/s
0 to 10000 ppm
0 to 50000 lux
0.5 C (5e40 C)
0.5 C
0.5 C
(1.0% RH 0.7% reading)
(0.03 m/s 4 of reading)
(50 ppm CO2 2% of reading)
4% of 10 digit
Winter
Moderate
Summer
Ta 0:8To 4:07
21
(1)
Table 3
Summary of seasonal variations in environment variables.
N 1811
Winter (N 610)
Moderate
(N 346)
Summer (N 855)
Mean
Minimum
Maximum
Range
SD
Error
Mean
Minimum
Maximum
Range
SD
Error
Mean
Minimum
Maximum
Range
SD
Error
To ( C)
Ta ( C)
Tg ( C)
RH (%)
Va (m/s)
Activity (met)
Clothing (clo)
Lighting (lux)
CO2 (ppm)
22.32
12.10
32.60
20.50
4.42
0.18
31.28
21.60
37.00
15.40
2.77
0.15
34.03
25.65
45.05
19.40
3.33
0.11
21.32
14.40
30.48
16.08
3.23
0.13
28.90
19.50
33.80
14.30
3.06
0.16
31.83
26.20
39.10
12.90
2.45
0.08
21.86
14.10
30.18
16.08
3.15
0.13
29.00
20.50
34.10
13.60
2.87
0.15
31.88
25.75
39.00
13.25
2.46
0.08
40.57
15.93
79.00
63.07
13.50
0.55
27.67
15.40
48.30
32.90
6.42
0.34
49.12
8.48
95.28
86.80
22.96
0.79
0.19
0.00
1.71
1.71
0.15
0.01
0.55
0.00
3.66
3.66
0.47
0.03
0.76
0.00
4.28
4.28
0.59
0.02
1.04
0.80
2.00
1.20
0.11
0.00
1.03
0.80
1.60
0.80
0.15
0.01
1.06
0.80
3.00
2.20
0.15
0.01
0.63
0.27
1.22
0.95
0.21
0.01
0.46
0.19
0.87
0.68
0.13
0.01
0.45
0.04
0.84
0.80
0.14
0.0
199.8
7.0
1984
1977
234.1
9.48
204.8
13.0
2330
2317
213.9
11.50
245.7
3.0
1997
1994
257.5
8.80
585.4
267
1115
848
136.7
5.53
537.7
147
888
741
129.2
7.13
545
222
1456
1234
245.4
10.21
Note: To e outdoor dry bulb temperature, Ta e room air temperature, Tg e globe temperature, RH e relative humidity, Va e room air velocity, Clo e clothing insulation, Met e
metabolic activity, Lux e lighting intensity, CO2 e carbon dioxide, SD e standard deviation, Error e standard error of mean, Range (MaximumeMinimum).
22
Table 4
Summary of physical characteristics of subjects.
N 1811
Age (years)
Height (m)
Weight (kg)
Mean
Minimum
Maximum
Range
SD
Std. error
23.4
16.0
75.0
59.0
7.8
0.2
1.67
1.0
2.1
1.1
0.1
0.0
60.3
35.0
114.0
79.0
12.1
0.3
1.7
1.1
2.3
1.3
0.2
0.0
conditions (sensation higher than 1) and 8.8% subjects felt thermal dissatisfaction due to coolness (sensation less than 1). During
the study, about one third of the subjects (27.4%) did not complain
of warm or cool indoor thermal environment; these subjects voted
for neutral thermal sensation.
Fig. 6 describes the distribution of subject's sensation votes over
room temperature through box plot representation. A box represents 50% of the total subject responses whereas upper and lower
whisker indicates maximum and minimum room temperature for
particular sensation. Bold horizontal line within the box represents
median of the subject's votes. A lower whisker height, for example
in case of very cold sensation (3), indicates that responses in the
lower quartile are distributed within smaller range of room temperature. Whereas, longer whisker length, for example lower
quartile at neutral sensation (0 sensation), indicates a wide spread
of subject responses.
Further to analyse the effect of temperature on thermal sensation; room temperature was binned by 2 C (temperature range
between 14 C and 40 C) for thermal sensation votes ranges
from 3 (cold) to 3 (hot). It shows that occupants start feeling
coolness for temperature bin 14e16 C and warmness until temperature bin of 36e38 C. Maximum 88% subjects were found
thermally satised for temperature bin 24e26 C and more than
80% of subjects were thermally comfortable between temperatures
bin of 22e24 C and 30e32 C. The study observed higher comfort
(votes found within central category of 1) bandwidth of 10 C in
naturally ventilated buildings of composite climate. The subjects
Table 5
Summary of sensation and preference variables at room conditions.
N 1811
Winter
(N 610)
Moderate
(N 346)
Summer
(N 855)
All season
(N 1811)
Mean
Minimum
Maximum
Range
SD
Error
Mean
Minimum
Maximum
Range
SD
Error
Mean
Minimum
Maximum
Range
SD
Error
Mean
Minimum
Maximum
Range
SD
Error
TS
TP
HS
HP
VaS
VaP
OTC
0.84
3.00
3.00
6.00
1.04
0.04
0.36
2.00
3.00
5.00
1.07
0.06
0.73
2.00
3.00
5.00
1.19
0.04
0.13
3.00
3.00
6.00
1.32
0.03
0.41
2.00
2.00
4.00
0.75
0.03
0.63
2.00
2.00
4.00
0.71
0.04
0.91
2.00
1.00
3.00
0.66
0.02
0.41
2.00
2.00
4.00
0.92
0.02
0.21
3.00
2.00
5.00
0.92
0.04
0.27
3.00
2.00
5.00
0.90
0.05
0.49
3.00
3.00
6.00
1.24
0.04
0.11
3.00
3.00
6.00
1.14
0.03
0.00
2.00
2.00
4.00
0.66
0.03
0.00
2.00
2.00
4.00
0.72
0.04
0.37
2.00
2.00
4.00
0.87
0.03
0.18
2.00
2.00
4.00
0.80
0.02
0.20
3.00
3.00
6.00
1.08
0.04
0.14
3.00
2.00
5.00
1.08
0.06
0.04
3.00
3.00
6.00
1.15
0.04
0.11
3.00
3.00
6.00
1.12
0.03
0.11
2.00
2.00
4.00
0.81
0.04
0.42
2.00
2.00
4.00
0.93
0.06
0.51
2.00
2.00
4.00
0.86
0.04
0.33
2.00
2.00
4.00
0.87
0.03
3.55
1.00
5.00
4.00
0.67
0.03
3.43
1.00
5.00
4.00
0.65
0.03
3.13
1.00
5.00
4.00
0.78
0.03
3.33
1.00
5.00
4.00
0.74
0.02
23
environment. Females had less BSA and hence have a lower neutral
temperature as compared to males. Neutral temperature of female
subjects (26.98 C) was 0.42 C lower than that of male subjects
(27.40 C).
(5)
(2)
(3)
(4)
Table 6
Summary of seasonal variations in thermal neutrality.
S No
Parameter
Winter season
Moderate season
Summer season
1
2
3
4
Regression equation
Neutral temp.
R
R2
Note: TSC, TSW, TSM, and TSS represent thermal sensation for combined, winter, moderate and thermal sensation for summer season. R2 e Coefcient of determination,
R e Regression coefcient, TS e thermal sensation.
24
(6)
on what the air velocity was, but may have been perceiving it
relative to what would have been desirable for their comfort state.
In other words, even though the summer air velocity was higher, it
was less than what they would have desired, and therefore they
voted that was slightly low relative to what was acceptable.
Ideal (just right) air velocity was perceived by 48% (N 862)
subjects whereas 24% voted towards higher air velocity and 28%
perceived low air velocity. Linear regression was performed between air velocity sensation votes and air velocity to determine
ideal air velocity of the subjects. Ideal air velocity was found to be
0.44 m/s. Equation (7) illustrates the relationship (r 0.3) between
ideal air velocity and air velocity present in the indoor spaces
during the eld survey.
(7)
Fig. 10. Box plot between air velocity sensation votes and room air velocity.
25
(8)
(9)
Fig. 11. Tabular summary between air velocity sensation and air velocity preference.
Fig. 12. Comparison of comfort temperature for present study and previous studies of
thermal comfort.
26
Fig. 13. 90% and 80% acceptability for present study (a) acceptability for naturally ventilated buildings as per ASHRAE Standard 55 (b).
(15)
(16)
Fig. 14. Comparison between thermal sensation votes and PMV index.
3.9. Conclusion
This paper presents results of a eld study of thermal comfort
conducted in thirty naturally ventilated buildings, including residential and ofce buildings, from composite climatic zone of India.
The questionnaire was administered to building occupants to record sensations and preferences for room temperature, relative
humidity and air velocity. Simultaneously, indoor environmental
variables and surrounding conditions of the subject were recorded
considering class-II protocol of eld measurement. The study
collected a total of 1811 subject responses from January to
December for three consecutive years. Due to large variation in
weather conditions in different parts of any year, the collected data
was segregated into three categories, namely: summer months,
winter months and moderate months. Analysis of neutral temperature was carried out for each of the three categories separately to
observe change in comfort temperature with respect to season.
Key conclusions of the study are:
Average body surface area of the subjects was observed less as
compared to the standard body surface area suggested by
thermal comfort standards.
The study observed a strong correlation between indoor and
outdoor temperatures. It indicated that indoor thermal environment in naturally ventilated buildings is largely affected by
varying outdoor conditions. In line to this, occupant encountered variable environment conditions in the study buildings
throughout the day and during discomfort they used different
controls for achieving thermal comfort state.
The neutral temperature of the group was found to be 27.2 C
(considering all data-all seasons). Neutral temperature for
winter, moderate and summer season was found to be 25.6 C,
27 C, and 29.4 C, respectively.
The study concludes that seasonal variations affected the thermal sensation of subjects and thereby the neutral temperature.
During summer, subject felt neutral sensation at higher room
temperatures and vice-versa.
Availability and accessibility of controls can provide thermally
comfortable indoor conditions to building occupants during
harsh summer and winter conditions. The study observed that
most of the survey spaces provided operable windows and fans
to overcome discomfort.
Thereby, thermal acceptability at 80% and 90% was found higher
as compared to ASHRAE's thermal acceptability limits in their
adaptive comfort zone model. The study revealed that subjects
from warm climatic conditions are more adaptive to the climatic
variations and feel thermally comfortable at higher temperatures as
compared to previous eld studies conducted by Humphreys, and
de Dear and Brager.
The study observed higher variations in air movement sensation. Some subjects perceived ideal air velocity at higher air
speed. The study also observed that during higher room temperature, subjects preferred higher air velocity.
The study observed faster adaptation to the indoor thermal
environment. The slope of the regression line was observed
higher than the previous referred studies.
The study concludes that the PMV model overestimates and
underestimates thermal sensation of subjects during warm and
cool conditions, respectively.
Present study can play important role in designing naturally
ventilated buildings located in warm, and hot & dry conditions. It
can also serve as a guide to building designers, architects, and
27
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