Combined effects of thermal and acoustic environments on outdoor human comfort in university campus

Abstract

Urban outdoor public spaces are complex systems and the thermal and acoustic environments are the two main factors that affect their overall comfort. Many studies have analyzed the effects of the thermal environment and acoustic environment separately from different perspectives, while further research is required to understand the combined effects between two or more factors on the comfort in outdoor public spaces. In this study, we chose a university campus and assessed the combined effects of thermal and acoustic environments on human comfort at several spaces. Results showed that thermal evaluation is mainly affected by PET and acoustic evaluation is mainly affected by LAeq at most of the sites. Apart from that, interactive effects are only significant on TSV at PA, SQ and on OCV at AC. Prediction made by linear regression model revealed that there're obvious discrepancy on both thermal and acoustic evaluation between predictions and actual conditions. For overall comfort evaluations, linear regression analysis suggest that people feel “moderate” under ideal conditions where there're “no thermal stress” and LAeq =50 dB(A). The OCVeq chart analysis showed that the variation trend was separated by 0 with linear and centralized on each side, giving the hints that people judge their overall comfort and discomfort differently. This study concludes that it's possible to predict human comfort based on knowledge about the current thermal and acoustic environment, but due to limitations of this study, the reliability and accuracy requires further researches to confirm.