AT-90-06-3 -- Thermal Responses to the Thai Office Environment PDF

Reports on a field study of more than 1100 Thai office workers in which a questionnaire survey and simultaneous physical measurements were taken. Both air conditioned and non air conditioned buildings were included. The data are compared to those from other field studies from both temperate and tropical climates. Thai subjective responses were analysed on the ASHRAE, McIntyre, and other rating scales, relating them to effective temperature, demographics, and to rational indices of warmth such as PMV and TSENS. Selected results are as follows - the neutral temperature of the whole sample was 25 deg C and in rough agreement with several empirical model predictions. The ASHRAE Scale category widths, determined through probit analysis, exceed by several degrees previously published findings. Thai conditions of thermal acceptability exist over a broad range of effective temperature, from 22 deg C to 30.5 deg C, pushing the summer comfort zone outwardly by 4 deg C. These findings suggest that, without sacrificing comfort, significant energy conservation opportunities exist through the relaxation of upper space temperature units.

KEYWORDS: thermal comfort, energy conservation, offices, Thailand, questionnaires, surveys, measuring, comparing, temperate regions, tropics, temperature.