Predicting thermal comfort in Shanghai's non-air-conditioned buildings

The thermal comfort of people in naturally ventilated environments was examined in a field study in Shanghai, China, in which over 1814 office workers responded to a questionnaire while simultaneous physical measurements were taken. The paper explores whether it is justifiable to use the predicted mean vote (PMV) model to predict inhabitants' thermal sensations. Participants cast votes on standard subjective thermal rating scales and these were correlated with temperature indices that variously account for the thermal impacts of humidity, radiant temperature, air velocity and clothing levels. It was found that the actual mean thermal sensation is lower than the PMV, i.e. about 0.64PMV. The upper boundary of operative temperature is about 29°C which is outside of the current American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) standard comfort zone (ASHRAE 55-2004), but lower than the temperature of the upper 80% acceptable limit calculated using an adaptive model (30.1°C). This suggests that people residing in this hot area have adapted to its climate and their expectations for comfort allow them to endure heat better than expected.