An Innovative Predictive Model for Indoor Thermal Comfort Condition of Residential Buildings to Mitigate Urban Warming: Case Study Kolkata, India

Abstract

The thermal comfort of building interior is one of the most important components of its thermal performance. The reliance of a building on artificial conditioning depends primarily on its inner comfort conditions. In recent times, this higher reliance of buildings on artificial ventilation and air conditioning has led to firstly, the creation of the heat island effect within cities, and secondly, the continuous warming of urban centers (particularly metropolises) with respect to the region and the hinterland to which they belong. The aim of this research is to investigate the relationship between the indoor thermal condition of old and new buildings to the contributing factors and to develop an innovative predictive numerical model to design buildings ensuring better indoor thermal comfort conditions. To date, no such composite predictive model has been innovated, although a considerable amount of work has been done on the factors separately. Considering the global urban warming since 1970 this research has sampled an equal number of residences from "Old Buildings" built before 1947 CE and "New Buildings" built after 1970 CE. This study is based on a composite analysis of the thermal performances of sample buildings against the physical factors influencing thermal performance—initially through examination of correlation and thereafter by developing a set of innovative numerical predictive models between indoor thermal conditions and their contributing parameters. This new numerical model shows a 55% curve-fitting on the thermal comfort index used.