BUILD SIMUL

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12273-017-0404-x

Adaptive thermal comfort in the residential buildings of north east

IndiaAn effect of difference in elevation

Research Article
Samar Thapa1 (), Ajay Kr. Bansal1, Goutam Kr. Panda2

1. Department of Electrical Engineering, Poornima University, Jaipur, India

2. Jalpaiguri Govt. Engineering College, Jalpaiguri W.B., India

Abstract Keywords
Thermal comfort standards are required not only to ensure good indoor climatic condition, but elevation,
also to optimize the energy used in a building for heating or cooling purposes. Generally, Fangers predicted mean vote,
Predicted Mean Vote Predicted Percentage Dissatisfied (PMVPPD) model is used by designers thermal sensation vote
and architects to estimate the comfort condition and hence the setpoint temperature inside a Griffiths neutral temperature
building. However, the recent field survey based studies on adaptive thermal comfort suggests
that the above used PMV model frequently either underestimates or overestimates the thermal Article History
sensation due to the non-inclusion of the adaptive opportunities that a subject may have in Received: 3 March 2017
Revised: 14 July 2017
maintaining comfortable condition. This leads to often an estimation of higher or lower setpoint
Accepted: 19 July 2017
temperature than that actually required for maintaining comfort, thereby consuming higher
energy. The aim of the research is to study the effect of difference in elevation which is a major factor
Tsinghua University Press and
for temperature difference in hilly terrain, on the thermal comfort of residents. We conducted a
Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany 2017
field survey in 6 residential buildings at two different elevations in the Darjeeling Himalayan
Region of north east India. A total of 1017 questionnaires regarding the indoor occupant thermal
comfort were collected from 46 subjects during the monthly survey held in the year 2015. Variations
in clothing insulation and other thermal comfort parameters were seen both with difference in
elevation and with outdoor environmental conditions.

1 Introduction they use natural measures like windows and fans to provide
comfort and no heating, air conditioning and mechanical
Energy conservation needs a prime attention today if we ventilation is done. Kwong et al. (2013) suggest that in NV

Building Thermal, Lighting,

are to sustain not only environmentally but also economically. buildings of warm and humid climates, the natural ventilation

and Acoustics Modeling

And, the building sector holds a huge potential for this
conservation worldwide, as it utilizes over 48% of the total
energy used. In India, building sector uses 48% of the total
energy used and out of which 73% is used in residential
buildings to provide comfort conditions of the indoor (BEE
2007), which may be in the form of heating, ventilating and
air conditioning. Now considering the large population of
the country a reduction of even a small fraction of energy
in this sector can lead to substantial savings.
Naturally ventilated (NV) buildings consume lesser
amount of energy during its running in comparison to air
conditioned (AC) buildings and hence are of interest to the
engineers, architects and also the owners. This is because
itself is enough to provide a thermally comfortable space, if
the subjects get opportunity to modify the conditions related
to comfort which suit themselves. However, the indoor
thermal environment of these NV buildings are generally
poor if not designed properly, which can lead to health issues
in the subjects apart from later retrofication with HVAC
devices which may become counterproductive, energy wise.
ASHRAE Standard 55 (ASHRAE 2013) defines thermal
comfort as that condition of mind which expresses satisfaction
with the thermal environment. There are two methods
which are usually used to determine the thermal comfort
inside a building. First, is the climate chamber based Fangers
Predicted Mean Vote Percentage Predicted Dissatisfied

E-mail: samar_thapa2005@yahoo.co.in
2 Thapa et al. / Building Simulation
(PMVPPD) model (Fanger 1972). However, this model
does not consider the various adaptive actions that the
subjects undertake in a real indoor environment in order to
make themselves more comfortable. As a result this model
often either underestimates or overestimates the actual
thermal sensation which is felt by the subjects inside a
building (Humphreys and Nicol 2002). In fact, the use of
PMVPPD model can result in unnecessary cooling in
warmer climatic conditions and unnecessary heating in the
cooler climatic conditions and if it is applied in developing
countries like India can lead to adversities in both economy
and environment (Yang et al. 2014). The second method is
the survey based method called the adaptive model, in which
thermal comfort questionnaires are filled along with the
measurements of the environmental parameters to determine
the comfort condition.
Barbadilla et al. (2017) states that control of indoor
temperature by the occupants have become important in
indoor thermal comfort. However, the application of adaptive
models in determining the setpoint temperature in an
HVAC building can lead to substantial energy savings. The
setpoint temperature is an important factor influencing energy
consumption in all climate zones (Cetin et al. 2016). Attia and
Carlucci (2015) predicted a 21% lesser energy consumption
using ASHRAE 55s Adaptive Model in comparison to
ISO 7730s PMV model during their simulation work for a
residential building in Cairo, Egypt. In NV buildings, these
adaptive models can be used while simulating the indoor
condition of the proposed buildings before their actual
construction so that some natural measures which can lead
to improved comfort conditions can be incorporated.
The adaptive model states that if a change occurs,
which produce discomfort, people react in ways which tend
to restore their comfort (Nicol and Humphreys 2002).
In real indoor conditions, occupants use various adaptive
opportunities available to them like opening or closing of
windows and fans, addition or removal of clothing layers,
taking of hot or cold beverages, taking a siesta, moving
towards a shed or taking a sun bath, etc. in order to make
themselves more comfortable. Adaptive actions are classified
as (i) behavioral, like clothing, windows, ventilators, etc.;
(ii) physiological, i.e. the acclimatization; and (iii) psychological,
the expectation. In fact number of feedback loop occurs
between the environment and a subject, but such internal
mechanisms are usually considered as a black box with
lesser relevance than the actual outcome (Nicol 2004).
McCartney and Nicol (2002) showed that the comfort
temperature of the subjects bears a strong positive correlation
with the mean temperature experienced by the subjects. In
this respect several field survey based studies has been done
to find the adaptive comfort limits. In the ASHRAE model,
de Dear and Brager (2002) had used 21000 responses for
thermal comfort from surveys held in 160 buildings under
varied climatic conditions and in four continents. They gave
a wide comfort limit of 21.5 30.5 C for the subjects in
varying conditions.
In India, the National Building Code (NBC) prescribes
two narrow ranges of temperature, 23 26 C and 21 23 C
for summer and winter, irrespective of variation in building
type and climatic conditions (BIS 2005). However, India
has wide variation in geography, climate, culture, ethnicity,
etc. all of which affect adaptation and thereby also the thermal
comfort. This wide variation within the subcontinent calls
for a more intensive field survey based studies within the
adaptive norms to determine comfort limits (Thapa and
Panda 2015). Recently, few works in India, in this field has
been done by researchers like Indraganti et al. (2014a) and
Mishra and Ramgopal (2014) in the hot and humid climates
of Chennai and Kharagpur, Dhaka et al. (2015) in Jaipur,
which has hot summers, dry and moderate winters and humid
monsoons. These studies found a much wider comfort limits
than that prescribed by the NBC. However, apart from Singh
et al. (2011) whose work was in three different climate types
of the north east part of India very few other works have
been reported in these eastern Himalayan regions which
have a higher cloud cover and cold temperature. Few works
are reported elsewhere (outside India) for this type of cold
climate types. In the Himalayan region of Nepal, Fuller
et al. (2009) discussed the benefits in improving the comfort
conditions by increasing the ceiling insulations and by
reducing infiltration level. Their study, which was conducted
in the month of April found that the indoor conditions in
these houses were much below what was internationally
accepted as comfortable. Cena et al. (2003) conducted a
thermal comfort survey in the trekkers of Himalayan and
Karakoram Range. They found an inverse relationship
between mean air temperature and the overnight mean
clothing insulation. They found that the subjects made an
adjustment in their clothing insulation to maintain a neutral
thermal sensation and secondly the discomfort and allied
problems increased with elevation. Rijal et al. (2010)
conducted an adaptive thermal comfort based field studies
in residential houses of five districts having different elevation
and climatic condition in Nepal. They found that the subjects
were highly satisfied with the indoor environment. The
subjects in the higher elevation region were much more
adapted to the cold condition than those from the lower
elevation region and voted accordingly. It was also seen that
the subjects made adjustments like changing their clothing
insulation or use of ventilation apertures, firewood and
different types of beverages to keep themselves comfortable.
The air temperature decreases with the elevation and is
called the environmental lapse rate. Secondly, as per the
adaptive theory, the temperature at which a person is subjected