ACHIEVING THERMAL COMFORT IN INDOOR HABITABLE SPACES OF AN EDUCATIONAL BUILDING

Abstract

Educational buildings and its occupants consume a lot of energy that needs to be reduced in order to achieve the desired level of thermal comfort and ease with the least amount of energy. For many years, the study of thermal comfort in indoor habitual spaces has been important. Current comfort standards, such as ASHRAE 55, do not reflect India's climatic diversity. In this regard, the purpose of this study is to evaluate thermal comfort in habitual spaces of an educational building in the context of a composite climate. Thermal comfort is influenced or affected by two type of factors which include firstly the outdoor conditions and local environment such as temperature, the humidity content, solar radiation, location and effect of adjoining areas and spaces. The second type of factors include thermal mass, orientation ,shading strategies, the building form, the type of glazing and its characteristics, the site context etc. These methods mentioned in the second group of factors can be incorporated in design and execution by architects, designers and engineers to attain desired thermal comfort levels in the spaces and building. Modern buildings can be designed with the contemporary and traditional passive design techniques and strategies to achieve thermal comfort. Habitual spaces in an educational building play a relevant role in the development of the students and other occupants in case of an educational building .Thus to make these spaces more user friendly and thermally comfortable is a priority. These spaces include classrooms, laboratories, other office spaces etc. where the students, faculty and other occupants spend most of their time while studying, experimenting and interacting. Thus to analyse these spaces, their thermal comfort levels and ways to improve the indoor environment of these habitual spaces is the need of the hour. Ensuring thermal comfort in educational buildings is now critical for enhancing academic health and performance. The heat-balance and adaptive approaches are the two most common approaches used to determine thermal comfort. Standards have adopted these two approaches, but there is no specific standard centred on educational buildings, which may present unique conditions. Furthermore, developing a methodology for analysing environmental factors in educational buildings is critical.Thus this study is an attempt to understand and analyse the global theories and Indian practices to look into the possible ways to achieve thermal comfort in buildings so as to make these spaces where students and other staff spend most of their valuable times, user friendly, environmentally friendly and thermally comfortable. The aim is to design for a better working environment and overall development of these educational buildings and thus its occupants for a healthy and comfortable learning experience and environment.