Application of the CPMV index to evaluating indoor thermal comfort in winter: Case study on an office building in Beijing

Abstract

Developments in science and technology have led to the increasing use of glass envelopes for office buildings, which has increased the influence of solar radiation on indoor thermal comfort. However, the predicted mean vote–predicted percentage satisfied (PMV-PPD) model neglects the effect of solar radiation, which leads to inaccurate assessment of thermal comfort. The corrected predicted mean vote (CPMV) model, which considers solar radiation, was previously proposed for thermal comfort analysis and applied to office buildings in summer. For further validation of the CPMV, experimental studies were conducted in the winter in Beijing. A total of 477 valid questionnaires were recovered during a field study in January 2019. The results showed that the thermal sensation vote (TSV) values obtained from the respondents fit well with the CPMV values. As the corrected operative temperature decreased, the CPMV tended to be lower than the TSV, and the gap between them tended to increase. The acceptability limits predicted by the CPMV model coincided with the actual thermal sensation when the corrected operative temperature was high. The CPMV model can effectively predict the TSV when the corrected operating temperature is higher than 18 °C in winter. These results demonstrate that the model can be used to fully consider the influence of solar radiation in the design of heating and air-conditioning systems for office buildings.