Thermal comfort study of plastics manufacturing industry in converting process

Abstract

Thermal comfort is one of ergonomics factors that can create a significant impact to workers performance. For a better thermal comfort, several environment factors (air temperature, wind speed and relative humidity) should be considered in this research. The object of the study is a building for converting process of plastics manufacturing industry located in Malang, Indonesia. The maximum air temperature inside the building can reach as high as 36°C. The result of this study shows that heat stress is dominantly caused by heat source from machine and wall building. The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation is used to show the air characteristic through inside the building. By using the CFD simulation, some scenarios of solution are successfully presented. Employees thermal comfort was investigated based on predicted mean vote model (PMV) and predicted percentage of dissatisfied model (PPD). Existing condition gives PMV in range from 1.83 to 2.82 and PPD in range from 68.9 to 98%. Meanwhile, modification of ventilation and replacing ceiling material from clear glass into reflective clear glass gave significant impact to reduce PMV into range from 1.63 to 2.18 and PPD into range from 58.2 to 84.2%. In sort, new design converting building process has more comfortable for workers.