Occupant response to transitions across indoor thermal environments in two different workspaces

Authors Marcel Loomans, Asit Kumar Mishra, Manon Derks, Jasper Kraakman, Helianthe Kort
Published in Building and Environment
Publication date 2018
Research groups Technology for Healthcare Innovations
Type Article

Summary

To understand how transition across different thermal zones in a building impacts the thermal perception of occupants, the current work examines occupant feedback in two work environments — nursing staff in hospital wards and the workers in an office. Both studies used a mix of subjective surveys and objective measurements. A total of 96 responses were collected from the hospital wards while 142 were collected from the office. The thermal environment in the hospital wards was perceived as slightly warm on the ASHRAE thermal sensation scale (mean TSV = 1.2), while the office workers rated their environment on the cool side (mean TSV =  0.15). The results also show that when the transitions were across temperature differences within 2 °C, the thermal perception was not impacted by the magnitude of the temperature difference — as reflected in occupant thermal sensation and thermal comfort/thermal acceptability vote. This would imply that the effect of temperature steps on thermal perception, if any, within these boundaries, was extremely short lived. These findings go towards establishing the feasibility of heterogeneous indoor thermal environments and thermal zoning of workspaces for human comfort.

On this publication contributed

  • Helianthe Kort | Professor | Research group Technology for Healthcare Innovations
    Helianthe Kort
    • Professor
    • Research group: Technology for Healthcare Innovations

Language English
Published in Building and Environment
Key words thermal comfort, indoor transition, office spaces, hospitals
Digital Object Identifier 10.1016/j.buildenv.2018.08.049
Page range 402-411

Technology for Healthcare Innovations