Human Thermal Comfort

Thermal comfort is a desirable state familiar to all people. Providing inspirational indoor and outdoor environments that provide thermal comfort, in the context of energy use and climate change, is a challenge for the 21st century. This book provides an up-to-date, comprehensive coverage of thermal comfort from principles and theory to practical application. The book begins with current knowledge and understanding of thermal comfort and its application to providing thermal conditions for indoor and outdoor environments. It integrates and presents new ideas to provide a comprehensive model of thermal comfort so that we can move on from the 20th and early 21st century and provide a focus for developments for future decades. This book will be of interest to practitioners and students and anyone involved with fields such as environmental design, physiology, ergonomics, human factors, industrial hygiene, architecture, health and safety and air conditioning. • Provides current thermal comfort standards and regulations • Describes the PMV, PPD, ET* and SET thermal comfort indices • Discusses adaptive thermal comfort, adaptive opportunity and explains why we have not moved towards a more dynamic and interactive approach to providing thermal comfort • Presents a new model relating thermal discomfort to performance • Shows how to construct a computer model of thermal comfort • Offers how to conduct a thermal comfort survey Human Thermal Comfort provides new ideas for achieving thermal comfort for offices, vehicles, atriums, and plazas of the future.

Human thermal comfort, namely in the areas of heating, ventilation and air conditioning (collectively known as 'HVAC'), is ubiquitous wherever human habitation may be found. Today, a large portion of the developed world's current energy demands are used to artificially keep the temperatures of our environments comfortable. It is therefore imperative for everyone, decision-makers and engineers alike, involved with the future of energy to be appropriately acquainted with HVAC.Lecture Notes on Engineering Human Thermal Comfort explains the quintessence of engineering human thermal comfort through straight-forward writing designed to help students better comprehend the materials presented. Illustrative figures, anecdotal banter, and ironical analogies interject the necessary technical humdrum to provide timeous stimuli in the midst of arduous technical details.This book is primarily for senior undergraduate engineering students interested in engineering human thermal comfort. It invokes some undergraduate knowledge of thermodynamics, heat transfer, and fluid mechanics as needed, to enable students to appreciate thermal comfort engineering without the need to seek out other textbooks.

Our responses to our thermal environment have a considerable effect on our performance and behavior, not least in the realm of work. There has been considerable scientific investigation of these responses and formal methods have been developed for environmental evaluation and design. In recent years these have been developed to the extent that detailed national and international standards of practice have now become feasible. This new edition of Ken Parson's definitive text brings us back up to date. He covers hot, moderate and cold environments, and defines these in terms of six basic parameters: air temperature, radiate temperature, humidity, air velocity, clothing worn, and the person's activity. There is a focus on the principles and practice of human response, which incorporates psychology, physiology and environmental physics with applied ergonomics. Water requirements, computer modeling and computer-aided design are brought in, as are current standards. Special populations, such as the aged or disabled and specialist environments such as those found in vehicles are also considered. This book continues to be the standard text for the design of environments for humans to live and work safely, comfortably and effectively, and for the design of materials which help the same people cope with their environments.

Thermal comfort is a desirable state familiar to all people. Providing inspirational indoor and outdoor environments that provide thermal comfort, in the context of energy use and climate change, is a challenge for the 21st century. This book provides an up-to-date, comprehensive coverage of thermal comfort from principles and theory to practical application. The book begins with current knowledge and understanding of thermal comfort and its application to providing thermal conditions for indoor and outdoor environments. It integrates and presents new ideas to provide a comprehensive model of thermal comfort so that we can move on from the 20th and early 21st century and provide a focus for developments for future decades. This book will be of interest to practitioners and students and anyone involved with fields such as environmental design, physiology, ergonomics, human factors, industrial hygiene, architecture, health and safety and air conditioning. * Provides current thermal comfort standards and regulations * Describes the PMV, PPD, ET* and SET thermal comfort indices * Discusses adaptive thermal comfort, adaptive opportunity and explains why we have not moved towards a more dynamic and interactive approach to providing thermal comfort * Presents a new model relating thermal discomfort to performance * Shows how to construct a computer model of thermal comfort * Offers how to conduct a thermal comfort survey Human Thermal Comfort provides new ideas for achieving thermal comfort for offices, vehicles, atriums and plazas of the future.

In the ten years since the publication of the second edition of Human Thermal Environments: The Effects of Hot, Moderate, and Cold Environments on Human Health, Comfort, and Performance, Third Edition, the world has embraced electronic communications, making international collaboration almost instantaneous and global. However, there is still a need for a compilation of up-to-date information and best practices. Reflecting current changes in theory and applications, this third edition of a bestseller continues to be the standard text for the design of environments for humans to live and work safely, comfortably, and effectively, and for the design of materials that help people cope with their environments. See What’s New in the Third Edition: All existing chapters significantly updated Five new chapters Testing and development of clothing Adaptive models Thermal comfort for special populations Thermal comfort for special environments Extreme environments Weather Outdoor environments and climate change Fun runs, cold snaps, and heat waves The book covers hot, moderate, and cold environments, and defines them in terms of six basic parameters: air temperature, radiant temperature, humidity, air velocity, clothing worn, and the person’s activity. It focuses on the principles and practice of human response, which incorporates psychology, physiology, and environmental physics with applied ergonomics. The text then discusses water requirements, computer modeling, computer-aided design, and current standards. A systematic treatment of thermal environments and how they affect humans in real-world applications, the book links the health and engineering aspects of the built environment. It provides you with updated tools, techniques, and methods for the design of products and environments that achieve thermal comfort.

The fundamental function of buildings is to provide safe and healthy shelter. For the fortunate they also provide comfort and delight. In the twentieth century comfort became a 'product' produced by machines and run on cheap energy. In a world where fossil fuels are becoming ever scarcer and more expensive, and the climate more extreme, the challenge of designing comfortable buildings today requires a new approach. This timely book is the first in a trilogy from leaders in the field which will provide just that. It explains, in a clear and comprehensible manner, how we stay comfortable by using our bodies, minds, buildings and their systems to adapt to indoor and outdoor conditions which change with the weather and the climate. The book is in two sections. The first introduces the principles on which the theory of adaptive thermal comfort is based. The second explains how to use field studies to measure thermal comfort in practice and to analyze the data gathered. Architects have gradually passed responsibility for building performance to service engineers who are largely trained to see comfort as the ‘product’, designed using simplistic comfort models. The result has contributed to a shift to buildings that use ever more energy. A growing international consensus now calls for low-energy buildings. This means designers must first produce robust, passive structures that provide occupants with many opportunities to make changes to suit their environmental needs. Ventilation using free, natural energy should be preferred and mechanical conditioning only used when the climate demands it. This book outlines the theory of adaptive thermal comfort that is essential to understand and inform such building designs. This book should be required reading for all students, teachers and practitioners of architecture, building engineering and management – for all who have a role in producing, and occupying, twenty-first century adaptive, low-carbon, comfortable buildings.

This book focuses on human adaptive thermal comfort in the building environment and the balance between reducing building air conditioning energy and improving occupants’ thermal comfort. It examines the mechanism of human thermal adaptation using a newly developed adaptive heat balance model, and presents pioneering findings based on an on online survey, real building investigation, climate chamber experiments, and theoretical models. The book investigates three critical issues related to human thermal adaptation: (i) the dynamics of human thermal adaptation in the building environment; (ii) the basic rules and effects of human physiological acclimatization and psychological adaptation; and (iii) a new, adaptive, heat balance model describing behavioral adjustment, physiological acclimatization, psychological adaptation, and physical improvement effects. Providing the basis for establishing a more reasonable adaptive thermal comfort model, the book is a valuable reference resource for anyone interested in future building thermal environment evaluation criteria.

This book highlights the importance of outdoor thermal comfort for improving urban living quality in the context of urban planning and urban geometry design. It introduces readers to a range of assessment methods and applications of outdoor thermal comfort and addresses urban geometry and thermal environment at the neighbourhood scale using real-world examples and parametric studies. In addition, the subjective evaluations by urban dwellers and numerical modelling tools introduced in this book provide not only a comprehensive assessment of outdoor thermal comfort but also an integrated approach to using thermal comfort indicators as a standard in high-density cities. Given its scope, the book offers a valuable guide for urban climate researchers, urban planners, and designers, and policymakers pursuing more liveable urban environments.