Abstract
This research looks into the aspect of Thermal Comfort (TC) in naturally ventilated (NV) buildings, in this case NV atriums. Compared to fully air-conditioned buildings, NV buildings tend to have better indoor air quality (IAQ), but worse TC. Therefore, this research investigates the range of acceptable temperature and wind speed in order to achieve thermal comfort for naturally ventilated atriums. Data was collected through field survey in three different buildings of NV atriums and were used to develop and validate the TC model. The data collected from field survey represent visitors’ TC perception in atrium environment, and in-situ environmental measurement also records the characteristics of NV atrium in each area, such as solar radiation, air temperature, relative humidity, and intermittent wind. At the same time with the indoor field survey, a weather station was installed on the roof of the building to measure the micro-meteorological condition. Thermal comfort prediction model was developed from the statistical analysis of the field survey data. The acceptable range to achieve thermal comfort for NV atrium was analyzed. The air temperature of 31°C was determined as the boundary condition. Based on the result of Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) formula, PMV 1 is the highest acceptable value with wind speed required is 0.51 m/s and PMV 0.8 is recommended to achieve the best thermal comfort with wind speed required is 0.78 m/s.
Highlights
Throughout the years of assessment and evaluation process of Green Mark (GM) scheme standard from 2005 set by Building and Construction Authority (BCA), it is found that the criteria used for Residential Buildings (RB) have been adopted for Non-Residential Buildings (NRB), and the passing criteria of area weighted wind velocity of ≥ 0.6 m/s (BCA, 2013) for developments with higher GM rating is deemed to be not sufficient to assess the natural ventilation (NV) design for NRB
In NV buildings, human comfort is more prevalent and needs more attention compared with air-conditioned buildings
This research looks into the aspect of Thermal Comfort (TC) in NV buildings, in this case NV atriums
Summary
Throughout the years of assessment and evaluation process of Green Mark (GM) scheme standard from 2005 set by Building and Construction Authority (BCA), it is found that the criteria used for Residential Buildings (RB) have been adopted for Non-Residential Buildings (NRB), and the passing criteria of area weighted wind velocity of ≥ 0.6 m/s (BCA, 2013) for developments with higher GM rating is deemed to be not sufficient to assess the natural ventilation (NV) design for NRB.There is a paradigm shift from heat balancebased thermal comfort models toward adaptive comfort modeling over the last 20 years (de Dear et al, 2014). All adaptive models show implicitly that occupants of NV buildings achieve thermal comfort across a wider range of indoor temperatures than occupants of air-conditioned buildings. In NV buildings, human comfort is more prevalent and needs more attention compared with air-conditioned buildings. The dominant characteristics of tropical buildings are openness to provide efficient ventilation, and shading to provide protection from the sun, rain and insects. Due to the tropical climate condition, buildings are found to be uncomfortably hot and humid at certain times, and higher velocity of wind flow over the human body is required to increase the efficiency of sweat evaporation (Yeang, 1987)
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