Experimental research on thermal comfort in the university classroom of regular semesters in Korea

This research has investigated physical variables affecting indoor thermal comfort and subjective responses of thermal comfort of students in a university in Korea in which the weather is oceanic temperate climate, and has been performed to contribute to the research fields of Sustainable Thermal Standard and Adaptive Thermal Comfort (ATC). This research is based on the ISO 7730-2005 standard and the ATC theories and 4 main variables of PMV such as dry bulb temperature (Ta), relative humidity (RH), black bulb temperature (Tg), and air velocity (Va) are measured once a week during two regular semesters. A clothing insulation, a thermal sensation vote (TSV), an acceptability of thermal environment, and a preference for cooling and heating are investigated at the same time using a questionnaire. This study was carried out for 26 weeks during the spring season, from March to June 2009, and the autumn season, from September to December 2009. The main achievements of this study are as follows. Monthly Mean Outdoor Temperature (MMOT) and Operative Temperature (OT) in the classroom during research periods are 7.4 similar to 23.3 degrees C and 17.5 similar to 29.0 degrees C, respectively. The acceptability ratio of thermal environment shows over 80% when the range of OT in the classroom is 17 similar to 25 degrees C, and the range can be applicable to operative index of heating and cooling of classroom. The mean TSV of respondents is almost neutral (0) when the PMV in the classroom moves to neutral (0) and slightly cool (-1), and the TSV is almost +1.5 when the PMV moves to slightly warm (+1). The acceptability ratio of thermal environment is slightly different from ASHRAE Standard 55-2004. So it is necessary to more investigate standard range of acceptability of thermal environment in oceanic temperate climate region using much more databases.