The synergy effect of temporal and spatial alliesthesia on occupants’ thermal comfort in air-conditioned temporarily occupied spaces (TOS)

Abstract

Although the phenomena of temporal alliesthesia and spatial alliesthesia have been widely examined over the past few decades, the synergy effect of them on thermal comfort was seldom explored. In this work, human subjective responses were obtained from 16 acclimatized subjects (8 males & 8 females) to examine the synergy effect of temporal and spatial alliesthesia on thermal comfort. By regressing local skin temperatures and thermal sensation votes (TSVs), the goodness of fit R2 between skin temperatures to TSVs was determined. Quantitative analysis of the synergy effect of temporal alliesthesia and spatial alliesthesia in an air-conditioned temporarily occupied space (TOS) chamber was performed. Results showed that TSV (p < .05) and thermal comfort votes (TCVs) (p < .05) are better able to explain the temporal and spatial alliesthesia as compared to thermal preference votes (TPVs). The R2 between local skin temperature and TSVs at forehead (0.76), hand (0.74), thigh (0.80) and calf (0.83) were greater than that between local TSVs and mean radiant temperature (MRT) (0.63). The heating temperature setpoint might be reduced to 16 °C by the use of a non-adjustable heated chair in air-conditioned TOS to maintain the thermal comfort of guests (insulation: around 1.5 clo, metabolic rate: around 1.0 met, stay for less than 40 min). Meanwhile, occupants in the air-conditioned TOS chamber could maintain thermal comfort at 14 °C for half the time (25 min) that it does at 16 °C. The findings in this work might help achieve energy efficient thermal comfort and develop design guidelines for air-conditioned TOS equipped with heated chairs.