A Review on Adaptive Thermal Comfort of Office Building for Energy-Saving Building Design

Abstract

The thermal environment quality of office buildings has an important role because thermal comfort is directly related to human productivity. Thermal comfort conditions are influenced by climate, location, and the built environment; hence, comfort standards are required to assist building designers in creating a comfortable indoor environment for building occupants. In this context, the present study analyzes the adaptive thermal comfort studies conducted in office buildings from various countries. A large number of research articles selected from the Scopus database were considered for this study. Based on the analysis, outdoor climatic conditions have a greater influence on indoor thermal conditions in naturally ventilated than in air-conditioned office buildings. The temperature required for comfort is as low as 17.6 °C and as high as 31.2 °C in naturally ventilated buildings. An adaptive comfort equation for naturally ventilated and air-conditioned office buildings has also been proposed to predict the indoor comfort temperature. Various studies show that a substantial amount of energy can be saved by changing the set point and natural ventilation. Furthermore, this study successfully provides hearty evidence that there is a need for climate-specific standards on thermal comfort for energy-efficient design development because existing comfort standards might not be applicable to all climates.