Thermal Comfort and Indoor Environmental Quality

Understanding Thermal Comfort and Indoor Environmental Quality

• Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) encompasses Thermal Comfort, Visual Comfort, Acoustic Comfort, Indoor Air Quality (IAQ), Building Ergonomics, and Building Ecology.
• Thermal comfort is achieved through continuous interaction between the human body and the surrounding environment, with heat exchange occurring through conduction, convection, radiation, and evaporation.
• The heat balance equation is the balance between the rate of heat production and the rate of heat loss, and it has different forms.
• Different factors such as health status, body shape, cultural and social background, thermal experience, thermal expectations, personality type, age, and gender affect thermal comfort.
• Air temperature has a strong effect on the indoor environment, with a temperature step of 3 K approximately required to change the thermal sensation of a sedentary person by one category.
• Water vapour pressure is the part of the total atmospheric pressure created solely because of the water vapour, and it affects thermal comfort, especially in hot and humid climates.
• Air speed is directly related to the convection and evaporation rates from skin, and indoor air speed should be controlled to avoid turbulence.
• Mean radiant temperature is the uniform surface temperature of a radiantly black enclosure in which a small radiantly black sphere would exchange the same amount of radiant heat as in the actual non-uniform space.
• Globe temperature represents the human body equilibrium under the influence of convective and radiant heat exchanges.
• Different definitions of thermal comfort exist, including physiological, physical, and subjective evaluations.
• Thermal comfort affects learning rates, and warm or cold discomfort environments or frequently changing temperatures can slow down learning rates.
• Understanding the different factors that affect thermal comfort is essential for achieving optimal indoor environmental quality.