Comparison between thermal comfort predictive models and subjective responses in Italian university classrooms
Abstract
SUMMARY This work is focused on the evaluation of indoor thermal quality and shows some results of a wider field study in university classrooms. The field study was conducted through physical observations and questionnaires, performed at the same time during the regular lesson time, in a period just before the start of the heating season. The predictions of dissatisfied occupants, based both on Fanger’s heat balance model and on an adaptive approach, were compared to each other. The subjective survey investigated the thermal acceptability, the thermal preference and the thermal sensation, asking students to assess their comfort on subjective scales. The calculated predicted votes were compared to the observed subjective responses. Moreover, the subjective mean votes were compared to the thermal environment perceptions in terms of acceptability and preference. The obtained results give a contribution to t he enrichment of knowledge about thermal subjective responses in classrooms.