Ventilation, Thermal Comfort and Air Quality in Building Indoor Micro-environments: A Measurement and Simulation Based Study

Abstract

In the Phase 1 of dissertation, a field survey was conducted to assess indoor thermal comfort in dormitory and offices buildings followed by calculation of comfort temperature (Tc). Afterwards, a comparative analysis of three Tc prediction adaptive models (linear, cubic and logistic) was conducted. In the last part of Phase 1, multiple variables were input in logistic and a machine-learning algorithm for prediction of thermal sensation. Furthermore, gender and seasonal differences were considered during dormitories data analysis. However, different ventilation modes were considered for analysis of offices data. Although thermal sensation votes of both genders in dormitories were statistically different, no statistical difference in indoor Tc between two genders were observed. Following Griffth’s method Tc in dormitories were calculated as 26.8±1.5oC and 27.6±1.7oC during summer and 22.7±2.3oC and 22.3±2.0oC during winter for female and male occupants respectively. Furthermore, in offices comparison of natural and central HVAC system showed significance (p>0.05) in sensation and preference votes. Mean Tc for offices under all five modes were 27.66, 27.18, 26.89, 19.15 and 19.73oC. Percentage accuracies of three adaptive prediction methods under study showed better performance of logistic regression. Besides, percentage accuracies of models were improved when all variables were input in the model.