Normative Thermal Comfort Assessment

Abstract

This paper reports on the development of a thermal comfort toolkit designed for the normative assessment of the indoor thermal environment of office facilities. It is one component of a larger building performance toolkit developed for the US General Services Administration. The thermal comfort part includes a set of unambiguously defined performance indicators (PI) based on the notion of objectively quantifiable performance measures. The set of indicators is founded on existing knowledge in biophysics and physiology, and constitutes a normative tool to assess the performance of buildings. The calculation of PIs is fully operational and web based. In the paper, the theoretical derivation of the indicators is given and their relevance in design scenarios is discussed.

Keywords

Thermal comfort Normative assessment Performance indicator Design scenarios Office buildings

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