Evaluating adaptive thermal comfort in residential buildings in hot-arid climates Case study: Kerman province

Abstract

Buildings should be built in such a way that provide acceptable and even pleasant thermal comfort for the users, while having high energy performance at the same time. Although today thermal comfort can be provided using mechanical equipment, but proper design can also provide comfort to some extent in any climate, so that mechanical equipment are only used when climate is unbearable. But how do we identify unbearable climatic conditions? We need a suitable criteria and the only acceptable one is the human being. numerous field studies have been conducted around the world on this subject. Comparison of results shows that, firstly, people around the world can reach comfort in a wide range of thermal environments. Secondly, there is a substantial difference between the predicted values of best thermal criteria and the actual feelings of people about thermal comfort. The present study aim to address this issue using field studies in hot-arid climates of Iran, and includes suggestions for neutral temperature and an acceptable range of environmental conditions for residents in Kerman city and similar climates. It also includes comparisons between houses with and without mechanical cooling in terms of neutral temperature, and the relationship between neutral and indoor temperatures, and more importantly, between neutral and outdoor temperatures. The results show that there is an acceptable correlation between the neutral temperature and the average indoor temperature, and more importantly, the outdoor temperature. Based on the results, it can be seen that the inhabitants under study, feel comfortable in higher temperatures than what is stated in international standards such as ISO7730 derived from Fanger᾽s predicted mean votes (PMV) theory.