Thermal Comfort Study II

This exercise expands on the Thermal Comfort Study I by investigating thermal situations that trigger a strong response, positive or negative in you (the observer) and/or others. For the exercise, you will need a temperature/relative humidity sensor, globe or spot thermometer and an aneometer. An example all-in-one device is the Kestrel Heat Stress Tracker. Your task is then to:

• record envrionmental conditions, activity and clothing level and calculate the resulting heat flows using the CBE Comfort Tool or another tool of your liking,

• analyze the results and try to “explain” your sensation using elements of predicted mean vote, adaptive thermal comfort and alliesthesia theory.

Task A - Identify an notable thermal situation

As disussed above, the situation that you pick may be particulary comfortable or uncomfortable. Try to understand what may be the root cause of your sensation and decide what parameters you should measure. If you suspect that your sensation is partly affected by your thermal history, e.g. when you are coming indoors after having been outside on a hot or cold day, then you should also measure that previous situation.

Task B - Record situation

Measure dry bulb temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and mean radiant temperature of the current (and potentially previous) situation(s). Record activity and clothing level of yourself and whoever else is evaluating the situation.

Task C - Calculate surrounding heat flow

Calculate heat losses from respiration, conduction, radiation and convetion heat losses and visualize them using a format comparable to Figure 1.