Extract

Human Thermal Environment is a branch of Ergonomics, concerned with human thermal comfort (i.e. whether a person feels too cold, hot, ‘sticky’ etc.), especially in their working environment. Thermal discomfort in educational buildings can create unsatisfactory conditions for both teachers and students, which will affect productivity and performance. The classrooms thermal environment requirements are different than residential and office environment, so it demands a separate thermal environment assessment study. This paper aims to investigate the thermal environment in classrooms as well as identifying the best and least performing spaces, concerning both environmental and personal variables by using IMAC (Indian Model for Adaptive thermal Comfort). This study employed subjective assessments through questionnaires, physical measurements, and simulation study to observe thermal comfort for the whole year. Architectural interventions led to the conclusions which, are the addition of insulating materials, designing of shading devices and enhancing night ventilation. The result shows the comfort hours are increasing three times than the present case by incorporating the night ventilation technique. Adding of insulating materials is creating a reverse effect in the indoor thermal comfort environment because of the high thermal mass of surface material.

Keywords: Thermal environment assessment, Educational buildings, User’s perception, Sustainable
design principles.

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