Revisiting thermal comfort models in Iranian classrooms during the warm season

The validity of existing thermal comfort models is examined for upper primary school children in classroom settings. This is of importance to enhance productivity in the learning environment and to improve the control of artificial heating and cooling, including the potential for energy savings. To...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Building research and information : the international journal of research, development and demonstration development and demonstration, 2017-05, Vol.45 (4), p.457-473
Main Authors: Haddad, Shamila, Osmond, Paul, King, Steve
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acceptability
adaptive comfort
Adults
Air conditioners
Children
Children & youth
Classrooms
Energy conservation
Field tests
Girls
Learning
Perception
PMV-PPD
school buildings
school classrooms
Schools
Seasons
Students
Temperature
thermal acceptability
Thermal comfort
thermal sensation
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Summary:The validity of existing thermal comfort models is examined for upper primary school children in classroom settings. This is of importance to enhance productivity in the learning environment and to improve the control of artificial heating and cooling, including the potential for energy savings. To examine the thermal perceptions of children aged 10-12 years in non-air-conditioned classrooms, three sets of field experiments were conducted in boys' and girls' primary schools in Shiraz, Iran. These were undertaken during regular class sessions covering cool and warm conditions of the school year, polling responses from 1605 students. This paper illustrates the overall methods and reports the results of the warm season field survey (N = 811). This investigation suggests that predicted mean vote-predicted percentage of dissatisfied (PMV/PPD) underestimates children's actual thermal sensation and percentage dissatisfied in the investigated classrooms. The analysis shows that sampled children may be slightly less sensitive to indoor temperature change than adults. The upper acceptable temperature derived from children's responses corresponding to mean thermal sensations of +0.85 is 26.5°C, which is about 1°C lower than the ASHRAE upper 80% acceptability limit. This implies that sampled children feel comfortable at lower temperatures than predicted by the ASHRAE Adaptive model during the warm season.
ISSN:0961-3218
1466-4321
DOI:10.1080/09613218.2016.1140950