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Since the thermal condition of living spaces affects the occupants' productivity and their quality of life, it is important to design effective heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) control strategies for better energy efficiency and thermal comfort. An essential step in HVAC control and energy optimization is thermal comfort modeling. Recently, data-driven thermal comfort models have been preferred over the Fanger's Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) model due to higher accuracy and ease...

Monitoring the thermal comfort of building occupants is crucial for ensuring sustainable and efficient energy consumption in residential buildings. Existing studies have addressed the monitoring of thermal comfort through questionnaires and activities involving occupants. However, few studies have considered disabled people in the monitoring of thermal comfort, despite the potential for impairments to present thermal requirements that are significantly different from those of an occupant...

Thermal comfort is a critical component of indoor environments, especially in schools where learning is the main objective. However, thermal comfort comes at a price that many schools are unable to afford. Therefore, it is critical to determine a method to lower the energy costs of a building while still maintaining occupant thermal comfort. The objective of this study is to investigate how three indoor environmental parameters of air speed, humidity, and air temperature influence energy and...

Purpose Occupants dwelling in hot climatic regions of India for a longer term are tolerable to high temperature levels than predicted by American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) standards. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the thermal sensations (TS) and neutral temperature of the occupants in naturally ventilated (NV) and air-conditioned (AC) classrooms of two technical institutions located in the same premises in the suburbs of Madurai. The...

Thermal comfort of residential rental flats is one of the problems from the ventilation aspect considering that the planning of flats is based on natural ventilation. This article is intended to formulate an alternative to the neutral temperature equation from the equation proposed by Humphrey, Auliciem, de Dear, Nicol, and Roaf with day and night measurement times. Measurements were carried out for three weeks in a student rental apartment building, Hasanuddin University Faculty of...

Abstract Climate change presents significant threats to human health, especially for low-income urban communities in the Global South. Despite numerous studies of heat stress, surprisingly little is known about the temperatures actually encountered by people in their homes, or the benefits of affordable adaptations. This paper examines indoor air temperature measurements gathered from 47 living rooms within eight low-income communities of Accra and Tamale, Ghana. Using multiple...

Increased thermal comfort in buildings is consuming large amounts of energy around the world, especially in hot arid and semi-arid regions. Finding and adapting ways to naturally cool buildings should be a priority for researchers in the subject. For centuries the Middle East cultures have used wind towers to cool their buildings and they have proved to be a cost-effective, easy to implement and reliable solution for passive cooling that requires almost negligible energy to operate. The...

In buildings, energy is primarily consumed by mechanical air conditioning systems. Low energy alternatives, such as natural ventilation, are needed. However, they need to be able to cope with increasing heatwaves and pollution, particularly in warm climates. This review paper looked at the ability of natural ventilation to provide adequate thermal comfort, resilience against heatwaves, and good Indoor Air Quality in warm climates. Single-sided ventilation demonstrates the poorest ability to...

Heat stress-related illness attributed to the changing climate, particularly the more frequent extreme high temperatures, is becoming a theme of public concern, especially in the most vulnerable regions, such as the African continent. Knowledge of the existing research directions and gaps on heat stress and human health is vital for informing future strategic research foci capable of influencing policy development, planning, adaptation, and mitigation efforts. In this regard, a bibliometric...

Children spend a significant proportion of their time at school and in school buildings. A healthy learning environment that supports children should be thermally conducive for learning and working. Here, we aimed to study the relations between indoor classroom temperatures and learner absenteeism as a proxy for children’s health and well-being. This one-year prospective study that spanned two calendar years (from June 2017 to May 2018) entailed measurement of indoor classroom temperature...

Abstract. Children spend a large part of their waking lives in school buildings. There is substantial evidence that poor indoor air quality (IAQ) and thermal discomfort can have detrimental impacts on the performance, wellbeing and health of schoolchildren and staff. Maintaining good IAQ while avoiding overheating in classrooms is challenging due to the unique occupancy patterns and heat properties of schools. Building stock modelling has been extensively used in recent years to quantify and...

Context — More than 200 million people suffer every year natural hazards consequences around the world, sensibly affecting vulnerable populations and resulting on building's partial or total damage. In post-disaster scenarios, it is required to provide the construction of temporary facilities that can be used as shelters or educational spaces, and it is suitable to deliver low cost, fast construction, and site adapted solutions. However, many of these units are built with prefabricated...

Thermal comfort varies significantly between individuals and regions depending on factors such as activity level, clothing, space temperature and relative humidity. This study considers the estimation of thermal comfort parameters such as air temperature, mean radiant temperature, air velocity, emissivity of space, metabolic rates, and heat transfer coefficients to determine comfort index, predicted mean vote, and predicted percent of dissatisfied people. Several equipment were employed to...

Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) are extremely energy consuming, accounting for 40% of total building energy consumption. It is crucial to design some energy-efficient building thermal comfort control strategy which can reduce the energy consumption of the HVAC while maintaining the comfort of the occupants. However, implementing such a strategy is challenging, because the changes of the thermal states in a building environment are influenced by various factors. The...

Undoubtedly, the steady increase in the number of elderly people is not to be underestimated. These demographic changes call attention to new challenges regarding adequate aging-in-place strategies. Since the majority of the senior population spend up to 90% of their time indoors, appropriate and comfortable housing represents an important foundation for such strategies. In this respect, different types of data gathered from sensors, connected devices, and Internet of Things (IoT)...

Buildings consume about 40 % of globally-produced energy. A notable amount of this energy is used to provide sufficient comfort levels to the building occupants. Moreover, given recent increases in global temperatures as a result of climate change and the associated decrease in comfort levels, providing adequate comfort levels in indoor spaces has become increasingly important. However, striking a balance between reducing building energy use and providing adequate comfort levels is a...