Study of the thermal comfort and the energy required to achieve it for housing modules in the environment of a high Andean rural area in Peru

Abstract

This study mainly evaluates and analyzes the thermal comfort of the young inhabitants of Imata, a high Andean rural village located at 4500 m of altitude in southern Peru. Acceptable thermal comfort ranges are defined for the villagers, from face-to-face surveys and with a device implemented for this study, which allows recording the temperature, relative humidity, clothing, and the thermal sensation vote TSV (considering a five-point thermal sensation scale). The comfort ranges are determined from the mean and standard deviation of each set of TSV values. Four thermal comfort zones are proposed, which are plotted on the psychrometric chart. Further, two experimental housing modules (M1 and M2) are analyzed, which were built in Imata with passive solar heating strategies. The simulation of both modules with m2m software allows determining the indoor temperatures for the year 2019 and the comfort schedules inside the modules by considering the comfort ranges established in this study. Finally, the energy required to achieve thermal comfort inside M1 and M2 is estimated using the simplified method of the ISO 13790 Standard.