Design criteria of built thermal environment for Hot Summer & Warm Winter zone of China

Abstract

Driven by guiding passive architectural design and HVAC system design, the present study is aimed to propose design criteria of built thermal environment for Hot Summer & Warm Winter zone of China. During the four years from 2008 to 2012, thermal comfort field studies were conducted on 32 urban buildings and 270 rural buildings, more than 500 persons were involved and 3894 sets of raw data that contain thermal acceptability, thermal behaviors and physical parameters were collected. Data of using split air-conditioners was also collected in living rooms, bedrooms and dorms. Based on the data, the acceptable range was determined for environments of naturally ventilation, using fans and using air-conditioners respectively, and accordingly the design criteria of built thermal environment were proposed. The 80% acceptable range of indoor air temperature for naturally ventilated spaces was specified as 18.0–29.5 °C for urban buildings and ≤29.5 °C for rural buildings under the air speed conditions provided by opening windows and using fans. The upper limit of the range can be raised by 1–2 °C by effectively improving indoor humidity and radiation conditions through architectural design. The setting conditions for air-conditioned spaces were obtained as indoor air temperature of 24–28 °C and relatively humidity of 50–70%. The proposed criteria provide solid and essential bases for passive and active designs of built thermal environment in Hot Summer and Warm Winter zone of China.