Investigation of Thermal Adaptation and Development of an Adaptive Model under Various Cooling Temperature Settings for Students’ Activity Rooms in a University Building in Malaysia

Abstract

The use of an air conditioner (AC) becomes essential, particularly in a hot and humid climate, to provide a comfortable environment for human activities. The setpoint is the agreed temperature that the building will meet, and the use of the lowest setpoint temperature to accelerate the cooling of indoor spaces should be avoided. A comprehensive field study was conducted under various cooling temperature settings in two student activity rooms in a university building in Malaysia, so as to understand respondents’ characteristics and behavior toward AC usage, to estimate the comfort at various indoor temperatures, to develop an adaptive model of thermal comfort in AC spaces, and to compare the comfort temperature with related local and international indoor thermal environmental standards. The findings indicated that water intake and clothing insulation affected personal thermal comfort. Moreover, the mean comfort temperature for respondents was 24.3 °C, which is within an indoor thermal comfort zone of 23–27 °C. The findings suggest that the preference of occupants living in a hot and humid region for lower temperatures means that setting temperatures lower than 24 °C might underestimate the indoor comfort temperature. Additionally, an adaptive relationship can be derived to estimate the indoor comfort temperature from the prevailing outdoor temperature.

Research on Summer Indoor Air Conditioning Design Parameters in Haikou City: A Field Study of Indoor Thermal Perception and Comfort

“…All instruments utilized in the measurement process complied with the requirements of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 10551 standards [29]. The questionnaire survey is a method that has been widely adapted in the research of indoor thermal comfort in the tropics and other climate zones in the world [30][31][32][33][34][35][36]. The questionnaire in this study was designed based on the ASHRAE Standard 55 [37], containing the environmental parameters of the on-site measurement, the environmental sensation of the subjects (thermal sensation, thermal comfort, humidity sensation, and blowing sensation), and the expectations of the subjects for the change of environmental parameters (temperature, humidity, and wind speed).…”

“…According to the ASHRAE standard, 90% of people feel satisfied with the ambient temperature for the thermal comfort interval, and 80% of people feel satisfied with the ambient temperature for the thermal acceptable interval [47]. Based on Chinese local standard GB/T50785, for the thermal comfort equation PMV-PPD, when MTSV = −0.5-0.5, 90% of the indoor population can obtain an acceptable temperature range [43], which was adapted in the previous research on Hainan Island [36]. Based on the above conclusion, 90% of the overall population in Haikou City can accept a temperature range of 23.2 • C-28.0 • C during the air conditioning season in public buildings, with a range of 22.5 • C-28.7 • C for males and 21.9 • C-29.3 • C for females, respectively.…”

Critical Review of the Literature on Thermal Comfort in Educational Buildings: Study of the Influence of the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Finally, the TPV, TAV, and TCV indices are used in numerous investigations and are included in some of the thermal comfort evaluation surveys, especially in those carried out by university students because they can respond more accurately to the nuances of these questions [159,164,175,186,191,216,238,253,257]. The same is true for HSV and HPV where the effect of humidity is analysed independently [187,210,212,215,229,235,247].…”

Assessment of residential settlement planning in Medina, based on climate adaptability

“…There are currently two international standards that have incorporated assessment methods based on an adaptive approach, namely ANSI/ ASHRAE 55 and the European standard EN 15251. The adaptive approach adopts the equation of internal comfort temperature for free running as a function of outdoor temperature [17], [18] 𝑇𝑐 = 𝐴 × 𝑇𝑎 + 𝐵 (1) Where Tc = internal comfort temperature [•C] Ta = monthly mean outdoor air temperature [•C] A and B are constants that will be determined based on experimental measurements and linear regression techniques. [19] 𝑇𝑐 = 0.5 𝑇𝑎 + 12.16 (2) As seen prior, traditional dwelling is not equipped with a system for heating and cooling.…”