Thermal comfort models for indoor spaces and vehicles—Current capabilities and future perspectives

Cristiana Croitoru (1) , Ilinca Nastase (1) , Florin Bode (1, 2) , Amina Meslem (3) , Angel Dogeanu (1)

1 UTCB - Technical University of Civil Engineering of Bucharest = Université Technique de Génie Civil de Bucarest
2 Technical University of Cluj-Napoca
3 LGCGM - Laboratoire de Génie Civil et Génie Mécanique

Throughout this paper, we reviewed the most popular thermal comfort models and methods of assessing thermal comfort in buildings and vehicular spaces. Most of them are limited to specific steady state, thermally homogenous environments and only a few of them address human responses to both non-uniform and transient conditions with a detailed thermo-regulation model. Some of them are defined by a series of international standards which stayed unchanged for more than a decade. The article proposes a global approach, starting from the physiological reaction of the body in thermal stress conditions and ending with the model implementation. The physiological bases of thermal comfort are presented, followed by the main thermal comfort models and standards and finishing with the current methods of assessing thermal comfort in practice. Within the last part we will focus mainly on thermal manikin experimental studies, and on CFD (computational fluid dynamics) numerical approach, as in our opinion these methods will be mostly considered for future development in this field of research

Keywords: Adaptive thermal comfort models; Fanger’s models; Physiological thermal comfort models; Thermal comfort assessment; Thermal comfort models

Domains: Engineering Sciences [physics]; Mechanics [physics.med-ph]; Engineering Sciences [physics]; Civil Engineering

Cristiana Croitoru, Ilinca Nastase, Florin Bode, Amina Meslem, Angel Dogeanu. Thermal comfort models for indoor spaces and vehicles—Current capabilities and future perspectives. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2015, 44, pp.304--318. ⟨10.1016/j.rser.2014.10.105⟩. ⟨hal-01165567⟩