Assessing The Thermal Comfort Conditions In Open Spaces: A Transversal Field Survey On The University Campus In India

Abstract

Outdoor thermal comfort (OTC) promotes the usage frequency of public places, recreational activities, and people's wellbeing. Despite the increased interest in OTC research in the past decade, less attention has been paid to OTC research in cold weather, especially in arid regions. The present study investigates the OTC conditions in open spaces at the campus area in the arid region. The study was conducted by using subjective surveys(questionnaire) and onsite monitoring (microclimate parameters). The study was conducted at the Deenbandhu Chhotu Ram University of Science and Technology, Murthal, Haryana-India campus during the cold season of 2019. The timings of surveys were between 9:00 and 17:00 hours. The authors processed the 185 valid questionnaire responses of the respondents to analyze OTC conditions. Only 8.6% of the respondents marked their perceived sensation "Neutral." Regression analysis was applied between respondents' thermal sensations and microclimate parameters to develop the empirical thermal sensation model. The air temperature was the most dominant parameter affecting the sensations of the respondents. The empirical model indicated that by increasing air temperature, relative humidity, and solar radiation, the thermal sensations also increased while wind speed had an opposite effect. Physiological equivalent temperature (PET) was applied for assessing the OTC conditions; the neutral PET range was found to be 18.42-25.37°C with a neutral temperature of 21.89°C. The preferred temperature was 21.99 °C by applying Probit analysis. The study's findings could provide valuable information in designing and planning outdoor spaces for educational institutions in India's arid regions

Sustainable architectural design features of Negeri Sembilan Malay houses: an analysis of indoor thermal comfort

“…Strategically planning the orientation of the building and opening as well as planting vegetation in the yard can reduce the direct solar radiation penetrating the house. Besides, it is also can encourage wind flow without any deterrents [18][19] [20][21] [22].…”

Effect of Vertical Urban Surfaces on Human Thermal Comfort in an Outdoor Environment

“…2.4 Discussion of the results obtained Five studies (Amirtham et al, 2014;Horrison and Amirtham, 2016;Rajan and Amirtham, 2021a,b;Amirtham et al, 2015) are conducted in warm and humid climate of Chennai, five Plaza, green and waterfront SVF, percentage of tree cover (Manavvi and Rajasekar, 2021) The open air markets at 2 locations SVF, frequency of shade (Kumar and Sharma, 2021a) City park -NS- (Kumar and Sharma, 2021b) University campus of DCRUST -NS- (Mohammad et al, 2021) Single linear street SVF (Rajan and Amirtham, 2021a) Various morphologies defined with LCZs SVF, H/W (Rajan and Amirtham, 2021b) Streets and open spaces SVF Various morphologies defined with LCZs -NS- Various morphologies defined with LCZs -NS- (Banerjee et al, 2020) Various morphologies of varying heights SVF, H/W (Deevi and Chundeli, 2020) Street with varying building heights SVF, H/W, and orientation (Manavvi and Rajasekar, 2019) two religious squares. SVF (Ziaul and Pal, 2019) Morphologies of varying densities Open mid rise, compact low rise and open low rise (Ali and Patnaik, 2017) Parks, lakefronts, open spaces Tree canopy density (Bhaskar and Mukherjee, 2017) Street orientations Seven alternative orientations with 15°increment (Horrison and Amirtham, 2016) Streets and open spaces within the neighborhood H/W, SVF, built density, and orientation (Amirtham et al, 2015) Various morphologies H/W, SVF, built density (Amirtham et al, 2014) University campus of Satyabhama University SVF, H/W, green cover, and orientation studies Banerjee et al, 2020;Ziaul and Pal, 2019;Bhaskar and Mukherjee, 2017) are conducted in warm and humid climate of West Bengal, and one study (Deevi and Chundeli, 2020) was conducted in warm and humid Vijaywada.…”

“…(Kumar and Sharma, 2021a) Assessing outdoor thermal comfort conditions at an urban park during summer in the hot semi-arid region of India. 04 (Kumar and Sharma, 2021b) Assessing The Thermal Comfort Conditions In Open Spaces: A Transversal Field Survey On The University Campus In India. 05 (Mohammad et al, 2021) Evaluating the role of the albedo of material and vegetation scenarios along the urban street canyon for improving pedestrian thermal comfort outdoors.…”

“…Equation 2.8 (ISO 7933, 1989) shows the index without direct solar radiation whereas equation 2.9 (ISO 7933, 1989) shows the index with direct solar radiation. Kumar and Sharma (2021b) used equation 2.9.…”

“…Table 2.5 shows the summary of the parameters included in the questionnaire. Most of the reviewed studies evaluated and compared thermal comfort at two or more locations of varying characteristics whereas some studies are focused on a single location such as a street (Mohammad et al, 2021), university campus (Amirtham et al, 2014;Kumar and Sharma, 2021b), and city park (Kumar and Sharma, 2021a). The sample size of the studies typically ranged between Current studies generally neglect psychological, socio-economic, and cultural factors (Nazarian and Lee, 2021;Dzyuban et al, 2022), and assume steady-state conditions for outdoor subjects (Aljawabra and Nikolopoulou, 2010).…”