ABSTRACT
Air movement is one of the six main variables determining human thermal comfort; air temperature, relative humidity, mean radiant temperature, metabolic rate, and clothing insulation are the others. Recently, HVAC design innovations, energy conservation concerns, and new laboratory data on fan-cooling and drafts have brought substantial attention to the issue of acceptable levels of air movement in office environments. Thermal comfort standards for indoor occupancy include air movement limits that are constructed from often conflicting evidence and are frequently problematic to apply. A primary reason is that air movement can provide desirable cooling in 'warm' conditions; it can also increase the risk of unacceptably cool drafts. The transition zone from desirable cooling to uncomfortable draft is a complicated function of physics, physiology, and human expectation. This work focuses on air movement for cooling in the expected temperature range 25.5 °C to 28.5 °C of this transition zone.
Subjects were given control of the air supply velocity from a desk fan (FAN), a floor-mounted diffuser (FMD), and a desk-mounted diffuser (DMD) at a single ambient air temperature. The subjects were asked to adjust the air movement as they pleased to make themselves comfortable. Physical measurements of the environment were made and subjective votes collected. A model that predicts the percent of satisfied people (the PS model) as a function of air temperature and air movement in warm conditions is proposed.
