Title : THERMAL COMFORT CHARACTERISTICS OF NATURALLY VENTILATED RESIDENTIAL BUILDINGS IN COMPOSITE CLIMATE - AN EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION
Authors : Soumya R., Anupama Udaykumar, E. Rajasekar, and Rajan Venkateswaran
Publication : February 13-16, 2013
Volume :
Pages : 10-Jan
Price : 250
Abstract : This paper deals with thermal comfort characteristics in a naturally ventilated apartment complex in the composite climate of Hyderabad. The discussions are based on the results obtained from real-time monitoring of thermal comfort parameters carried out over a period of 6 months between January and July in representative apartment units. The indoor temperature was found to closely follow the ambient temperature and the experimentally determined time lag varied from 1 hour to 2 hours and decrement factor varied from 0.2 to 0.45 depending on the spatial zoning and orientation of wall surfaces. Fanger’s PMV was found to be above ‘+2’ during summer which indicates the prevalence of heat discomfort. During winter it ranged between ‘-0.5’ to ‘+1.5’ which indicates a comfortable thermal environment. The comfort levels estimated in these residential units through Fanger’s PMV, Adaptive Comfort Standard and Tropical Summer Index (TSI) were compared with the adaptive thermal comfort band that was recently established for this region. It was found that there is a significant variation in the estimation of comfort between these indices. TSI estimated minimum amount of heat discomfort while Fanger’s PMV estimated a maximum amount of heat discomfort. Predictive formulae for evaluation of indoor thermal comfort in such spaces using ambient climatic data have been derived.