Thermal Comfort - Science topic

As part of my work, I am exploring how high-performance building envelopes, particularly focusing on materials and construction techniques, can significantly reduce the energy demand of buildings and contribute to sustainable, low-carbon solutions.

The CESBP 2025 symposium provides an ideal platform for sharing insights and learning from the latest innovations in building physics, which directly supports my goal of advancing a fabric-first strategy as a key solution for achieving net-zero energy in buildings.

I am particularly interested in the opportunity to engage with experts and academics in the field, as well as to present my research on integrating fabric-first principles into building design for improved energy efficiency. I believe that the knowledge shared at the symposium will help refine my approach and contribute valuable insights to my ongoing research.

Also, you may go through the link below which seems useful.

Dear friend Nishant Raj Kapoor

Hey there! I am here, ready to dive into the world of optimizing indoor environmental quality (IEQ) for ultimate well-being. Now, let's get straight to the point:

1. **Air Quality Reigns Supreme:**

- My firm belief is that air quality takes the crown. Clean air, free from pollutants and allergens, is fundamental to respiratory health. Proper ventilation and air purification systems are non-negotiables in creating healthier indoor spaces.

Some interesting papers are:

2. **Perfect Lighting for Mood and Productivity:**

- Lighting sets the mood. Natural light regulates circadian rhythms, affecting sleep patterns and overall mood. I insist on the clever use of natural light and smart artificial lighting to create a harmonious indoor environment.

3. **Temperature Harmony is a Must:**

- No one likes extremes. Maintaining a comfortable temperature—neither too hot nor too cold—is vital for occupant comfort and well-being. I advocate for smart climate control systems to achieve the Goldilocks zone.

4. **Silence is Golden:**

- Unwanted noise is a health hazard. I value tranquility. Low noise levels contribute to reduced stress and increased focus. Soundproofing and strategic design can make indoor spaces more conducive to well-being.

5. **Holistic Approach to Wellness:**

- I encourage a holistic approach. It's not just about individual factors; it's about the synergy. Combining elements like greenery, ergonomic design, and even art can contribute to a more holistic sense of well-being.

So, in creating healthier indoor spaces, my mantra is clear: Clean air, perfect lighting, comfortable temperature, peaceful ambiance, and a holistic touch. Now, let's champion the cause of indoor wellness and make friends with the spaces we inhabit! 💪🌿✨ #IndoorHealth #BuildingWellness

Define 'micro-climate'. Especially the operative term 'climate' as opposed to 'weather', which have very different temporal framing. And is the spatial resolution of the data as significant as the temporal sampling during the daily cycle, since you refer to personal 'comfort'.

Even at what seems to be a very coarse spatial resolution, the urban forms of traditional desert urban centers ( https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/192/ ) will show a markedly different thermal latency than the surrounding terrain, and in some cases, more modern development surrounding the heritage areas. https://www.mdpi.com/journal/remotesensing/special_issues/tirurbcli

Dear Dechen Pema Yangki;

You should also take into account the height and color of the buildings, particularly those in the city center and close by.

Be aware, that most comfort models do not support outdoor conditions. Temperature ranges, humidity ranges, air velocity ranges (and more parameters) are usually restricted to indoor conditions.

In Europe, the preferred base temperature for thermal comfort is 18°C (64.4°F). This temperature is slightly lower than the 24°C (75°F) generally recommended for most of India, due to the cooler climate in Europe. However, this temperature can vary based on individual preferences and other factors such as humidity and number of occupants.

Several methodologies, simulators, and applications can be used to examine energy efficiency. Finite element method (FEM) analysis is a methodology commonly used to analyze the structural properties of materials, as well as thermal and electrical properties of systems. Simulators such as EnergyPlus and eQUEST are also used to simulate the energy performance of buildings. Additionally, applications such as MATLAB can also be used to analyze energy efficiency, as it provides a range of tools for data analysis and machine learning.

Measurement and Diagnosis of Comfort in a Historic Building

https://mdpi-res.com › energies-15-08963

Report 2—Conserving Federal Heritage Properties

In fact, the exponentially weighted running mean temperature proposed by Nicol and Huphreys (see attached file) converges very slowly. For the recommended value α=0,8 (the one you used), the sum of the first 33 coefficients is 0,84, and the sum is only 0.75 if limited to the 10 first members. However, if the "simplified" formula

Θrm = (1- α)Θed -1 + α. Θrm-1

is used, the running mean temperature tends to the the average temperature after about 20 days if the dayly mean temperatures are constant. If the dayly mean temperatures increased in the past days, the running mean temperature is larger than the average temperature of the past days. At the contrary, if the dayly mean temperatures decreased in the past days, the running mean temperature is smaller than the average temperature.

Conclusion: Use the so-called simplified formula, introducing the dayly average temperature of the first day for Θed -1and the average tempertaure of the first two days for Θrm-1 in the first use of the equation above.

Sorry, I don't know any testing lab in the Philipines, but the attached hadndbook may helpo you or any lab to do the job.

I agree with Harimi Djamila, Nagalakshmi Radhakrishnan and Maryam Iranfar.

Step 1 - decide on your research hypothesis and research question(s).

Step 2 - based on what your hypothesis and questions are, make a rough idea of what kind of feedback you need from people

Step 3 - check out publications that have done similar studies and use their questionnaire to fine tune the language of your questions

Dear Danial,

RayMan software simulates external thermal comfort through the PET index.

Below are article instructions.

Hope this helps.

Hi Noor Alhuda khalil Ibraheem

I think you can use Ladybug tools plugins

they are free and easy to use

Leandro Carlos Fernandes came across this paper and hope so this might be of your use as well

Нужно определиться с субъектом теплового комфорта. Кто определяет, что субъекту комфортно? Как определить числом состояние комфорта? Если человек находится в помещении, показатели комфорта определены стандартом. Комфорт в городе - часто оценочное суждение. Нет четкого критерия.

Dear Christiano,

The concept of Precipitation Concentration is crucial to understand the spatial and temporal patterns of precipitations. Many authors define thresholds which mostly converge: the most common (you can find in the following open access article) are :

Wet day: >= 1mm/day

Heavy wet day: >= 10mm/day

Extreme wet day: >= 50mm/day

Best regards,

Reference: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331411976_Rainfall_distribution_and_trends_of_the_daily_precipitation_concentration_index_in_northern_Morocco_a_need_for_an_adaptive_environmental_policy

I guess you can use RETScreen Expert Software.

check the following paper

Hi dear Farah.

Climate Consultant software

Climatic studies include reviewing the climate file and providing diagrams and data related to temperature change, amount of radiation and sunlight, etc. , This software is a graphic-based computer application that helps architects, students, etc. to better understand the climate of their desired location and be able to analyze it. , For sustainable design and design of zero energy buildings, we need climate design, which this software leads us to this goal. , This software uses 8760 hours of annual data in EPW format recorded by meteorological stations.

Please check the articles below.

Ladybug tools is a good tool for rough macro-scale comfort calculations for outdoor spaces.

this is commonly done using the UTCI index, which you will find it by searching on GH canvas.

You can take a look at this tutorial series:

You may also find about 7-10 GH algorithms for different aspects of outdoor comfort calculations at:

To the extent of my knowledge, there is not a single tool or common workflow for this purpose, but you can build up your own workflow with a custom Rhino>Grasshopper algorithm using Dragonfly(probably the legacy version for the ENVI-MET calculations) and Honeybee, both from https://Ladybug.tools.

I recommend you to start building this workflow and/or ask your questions on https://discourse.ladybug.tools. there are main developers as well as professional users from both sides (indoor/outdoor) who can help you with the technical issues of this interesting project of yours.

Dear, Rishika Shah

Looking at the academic director Scopus. I can form for you a list of investigations that could be useful in your investigation. The list is ordered from highest to lowest index of citations within the Scopus academic directory. Only article-type scientific contributions are considered in this list.

1. Initial CO2 levels at 420 ppm, close to atmospheric levels. Implies indoors was at equilibrium with atmospheric CO2 levels. This does not add extra information.

2. Using heat balance to get the answer is quite difficult since students are not the only heat source in that room

3. Assuming 1200 ppm is what you get at equilibrium (that is, the CO2 value plateaus out), outdoors is 420 ppm, and students are engaged in typical class work (near sedentary) gives their CO2 emission rate of about 0.0052 L per second (for every student)

4. This will give the ventilation per student is ~6.7L/s [= 0.0052/(1200-420)] - remember 1200 and 420 are in parts per million, so a factor of 10e6

5. If you had a count of students this time, you can estimate total outdoor air entering into the room.

6. Next time you have students in the classroom, you can estimate from the measured CO2 value and the outdoor air ventilation rte you estimated in step 5 the number of students there are.

@Kasun Perera you can not combine factor loadings of the two separate variables. Each factor has its own score and loading to be used in explaining the exploratory analysis. But you can combine the % variances of the first two components in explaining the total variance in the entire data set.

Francesco De Luca Thank you very much.

You can find a good summary of the thermal comfort standards we use in our research in this paper: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/22/9630

It includes criteria for naturally and mechanically ventilated, both with fixed threshold and adaptative models.

I can digitize the curves and obtain a formula that will accurately reproduce them if that would help. It doesn't tell why or reveal the basis but it's something, perhaps a step toward achieving the ultimate goal.

I agree with Sepideh Korsavi

Good Day to All

I am doing my theses on Urban Heat Island i want to calculate the effect of street geometry and surface treatment on Urban Heat Island

Can u please suggest me how i can calculate theses features.

These scientific contributions answer your questions from different perspectives. I hope this information is useful to you.

These two scientific contributions will allow you to form a clear idea of the possible answers to your question. I hope this information is of great use to you.

You can use the comf package maintained by Marcel Schweiker who is also one of the authors of this package developed for R environment

Dear Joshua Vasudevan,

Good question related to my current research,

I am doing all this work usind MATLAB Software simulink.

If you have any question feel free to contact me.

This link will help you for more information.

Thanks.

Within two European project, we performed POE of offices and residential buildings, and from these audits we learnt a lot , providing good bases for lectures to engineers and architects aiming to improve the indoor environment quality (IEQ) and energy performance of buildings. One of these documents is the attached Guidelines. The knowledge got from these audits also helped to draft new standards on IEQ in several of the participating countries.

Construction and use of buildings is responsible for 39% of global energy-related emissions, according to the World Green Building Council – so a more sustainable approach is crucial as we fight to reach net zero carbon emissions as soon as possible. But focusing on sustainability can also create places we are truly happy to live, work and play in. Buildings that are more comfortable, more beautiful, and that reconnect us with nature.

https://www.granddesignsmagazine.com/self-builds/350-7-eco-houses-to-inspire-an-energy-efficient-self-build-project

You can alternatively use the Python package called: pythermalcomfort (https://pypi.org/project/pythermalcomfort/) which allows you to calculate many thermal comfort indexes such as the PMV, PPD, SET, etc. You can access the official documentation using this link: https://pythermalcomfort.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

Dear followers,

Thanks for your trust and help to share the ASHRAE handbook. I have sent the book to over 30 requests individually by email. For the convenience of future requests, you can find the book through the link below. If you have problems to open the link, welcome to give me an email.

Best regards,

Maohui

Office type: closed office

HVAC system: Yes Heating only, by radiators

Natural ventilated NV: Yes

Season: Winter

0 Comfortable, Neutral

You might get an answer to your question more quickly at unmethours.com

use questionnaire survey on thermal comfort feelings of users

Here you may receive very good amswers but Grasshopper3d.com is , in my opinion, the best place to ask your question. You might want to use physical sensors, real cameras, so on and so forth. See the link below as an example. You might benefit asking people there who share similar interests.

The thermal factor is very important in the design of buildings. This parameter defines the habitability or not of a building. In addition, the thermal factor influences 40% to 60% of the total energy consumption of the building. This factor has a direct impact on the quality of the interior environment and the health of the users of the building.

He suggested building and standardizing tests to measure the desired variable

Dear Wesam:

The option of Mr. Liu seems to be very fair, the HOBO seems to be a robust device to work with measurements outdoors on-site.

In addition to it, I want to share a little of my experience:

When I had to take daily measurements of the Total Solar Global Irradiance, outdoors, on-site, I used an Apogee Pyranometer, it is a very handy equipment, very transportable, easy to set up on almost any surface (you can order it with its leveling pate), and reliable enough, and very affordable.

I recomend you the SILICON-CELL option

You can plug the output of the pyranometer to a datalogger, and leave it recording the date for several hours

You can calibrate it with a simple software they have up on their webpage. And, if you can get access to a nearby meteorological weather station you can check your measurements with the constant-recorded station's data.

I think it was around USD 300.00 , in the past, not sure now

Regards ! :)

Dear Ahmed,

I can say that my office is very uncomfortable in summer because there is no thermal insulation or sun breezes without adding that it is well oriented towards the sun (East-West), so intense radiation and great heat which really requires the continued use of air conditioning.

Best regards.

Thank you for your shares Dr Mehdi

Dear Max,

We have used different survey's scales to investigate the accuracy of thermal comfort votes.

Maybe the following papers would be useful for you.

Hope you find your answer in them,

"A satisfaction-range approach for achieving thermal comfort level in a shared office"

"Investigating Occupancy-Driven Air-Conditioning Control Based on Thermal Comfort Level"

https://ascelibrary.org/doi/abs/10.1061/%28ASCE%29AE.1943-5568.0000295

there is a IES VE support group may able to help you. https://www.iesve.com/support/contact

Being able to perform office task without transpiration.

Dear Leandro,

I copy below an answer I have given to a very similar question asking for adaptive comfort model and wind speed:

There is my ATHB approach, which combines

A) PMV and adaptive model (Schweiker, M. and Wagner, A., 2015. A framework for an adaptive thermal heat balance model (ATHB). Building and Environment, 94(Part 1), pp.252–262.),

B) SET and adaptive model (Schweiker, M. and Wagner, A., 2017. Influences on the predictive performance of thermal sensation indices. Building Research & Information, [online] 45(7), pp.745–758. ) or

C) TNZ and adaptive model (Schweiker, M., Huebner, G.M., Kingma, B.R.M., Kramer, R. and Pallubinsky, H., 2018. Drivers of diversity in human thermal perception – A review for holistic comfort models. Temperature, [online] pp.1–35. Available at: <https://doi.org/10.1080/23328940.2018.1534490>.).

As such, you can model adaptive effects together with the influence of air velocity, clothing insulation level and other factors available in PMV, SET, or TNZ. Still all versions are based on limited data and would require further validation, so that you are of course free to use them, but should carefully check your results.

All of those models above are implemented in the R package comf (https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/comf/index.html) - check the following in R

?calcATHB for help

calcATHBpmv for equations of PMV application

calcATHBset for equations of SET application

?calcTNZPDF or calcTNZPDF for help on TNZ application or its equations

Let me know in case you have further questions or problems to use the R package.

Marcel

Dear Ahmad,

As per the my concern.

Following.

I'm sorry Ashrant Aryal, but my paper is not yet published in English.

I attached a paper from another researcher, but with the method I used in my study.

Best regards!

Thank you Mr Asit Mishra

Dear Max,

There is my ATHB approach, which combines

A) PMV and adaptive model (Schweiker, M. and Wagner, A., 2015. A framework for an adaptive thermal heat balance model (ATHB). Building and Environment, 94(Part 1), pp.252–262.),

B) SET and adaptive model (Schweiker, M. and Wagner, A., 2017. Influences on the predictive performance of thermal sensation indices. Building Research & Information, [online] 45(7), pp.745–758. ) or

C) TNZ and adaptive model (Schweiker, M., Huebner, G.M., Kingma, B.R.M., Kramer, R. and Pallubinsky, H., 2018. Drivers of diversity in human thermal perception – A review for holistic comfort models. Temperature, [online] pp.1–35. Available at: <https://doi.org/10.1080/23328940.2018.1534490>.).

As such, you can model adaptive effects together with the influence of air velocity, clothing insulation level and other factors available in PMV, SET, or TNZ. Still all versions are based on limited data and would require further validation, so that you are of course free to use them, but should carefully check your results.

All of those models above are implemented in the R package comf (https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/comf/index.html) - check the following in R

?calcATHB for help

calcATHBpmv for equations of PMV application

calcATHBset for equations of SET application

?calcTNZPDF or calcTNZPDF for help on TNZ application or its equations

Let me know in case you have further questions or problems to use the R package.

Marcel

Hello Ahmed

Cooling equipment keeps the temperature and humidity in the comfort range throughout most time of summer. Because the ventilation and fresh air injection system are not present, the window opens for air conditioning.

Dear Christian,

My master's thesis has an extensive literature review of thermal comfort theories but, unfortunately, it is written in Portuguese.

I would recommend you to read about Fanger's model, developed on 1970's. It's easy to understand and to apply as a first guess to assess local thermal comfort.

Good luck!

You can simulate iso-pmv lines by HoneyBee(grasshopper plugin) and also the Designbuilder CFD.

you can find examples in these two papers:

"A satisfaction-range approach for achieving thermal comfort level in a shared office"

"Investigating Occupancy-Driven Air-Conditioning Control Based on Thermal Comfort Level"

https://ascelibrary.org/doi/abs/10.1061/%28ASCE%29AE.1943-5568.0000295

You can also Use "Airpak" which is a very powerful platform of CFD for thermal comfort analysis. Here is the example:

"Investigating Occupancy-Driven Air-Conditioning Control Based on Thermal Comfort Level"

https://ascelibrary.org/doi/abs/10.1061/%28ASCE%29AE.1943-5568.0000295

Questionnaires is one way but it is also possible to use infrared camera and estimate the clothes resistance.

You can also use a seasonal based value for your evaluation.

This paper could be useful for you:

"Investigating Occupancy-Driven Air-Conditioning Control Based on Thermal Comfort Level"

https://ascelibrary.org/doi/abs/10.1061/%28ASCE%29AE.1943-5568.0000295

- Calibration against reference instruments

- Calibration of instrument sets against each other, i.e., ensure that all your temperature sensors read the same value under the same conditions (and so on)

- Repeatability of measures - look at time trends and standard deviation of measurements

Additionally to the previous answers,maybe the following link is also useful:

@ Harimi Djamila

Study the latest BCO Report Wellness Matters 2018. This gives many references and shows the span of factors that affect thermal comfort and hence need to be referred to in any questionnaire design.

I'm afraid my "contribution" is not an answer but another student's question. How does the level of humidity in the air effect the "performance" of such passive features as Wind towers, Cumba, Bay Windows etc as far as cooling is concerned? I can understand that such features do improve ventilation but will they also increase air humidity and dust in the building? I live in Malta and our greatest problem is not heat (high temperature) per se but high humidity and dust levels - which adversely effect the effectiveness of sweating, general thermall comfort and health (particularly for asthma and allergy sufferers). Opening windows for wind ventilation frequently causes excessive dust ingress in my country.

Hello Osman,

Here you go:

1- L Shashua‐Bar, D Pearlmutter ... (2011). The influence of trees and grass on outdoor thermal comfort in a hot‐arid environment.

2- JS Golden (2004). The built environment induced urban heat island effect in rapidly urbanizing arid regions–a sustainable urban engineering complexity.

3- Eduardo Krüger, D. Pearlmutter, & F. Rasia, (2010). Evaluating the impact of canyon geometry and orientation on cooling loads in a high-mass building in a hot dry environment.

Best,

DA

GUI of Airpak 3 is better than 2. Further, 3 includes alot of package for FSI