Combining Thermodynamics with Architectural Design Concepts: Thermal Comfort and Sustainability of Railway Passenger Stations

Abstract

With the continuous deepening of urbanization, railway passenger stations have become the core transport nodes of cities, transporting a large number of passengers every day. However, people's demand for thermal comfort in the environment has been gradually increasing at the same time, making thermal comfort and sustainability of the stations indispensable elements in their design. Although studies of building thermal comfort are quite rich in theory and practice, most of them focus on residential or office buildings. The specific public facilities of railway passenger stations have been studied relatively less. Therefore, this study dug into the thermal comfort of those stations from the perspective of human thermal balance and sensation. At the same time, the sustainability of thermal comfort was evaluated and analyzed by combining the structural equation model (SEM) and the Importance Performance Analysis (IPA) model, aiming to provide reference and guidance for the design and renovation of railway passenger stations in the future.

Procedure for Aggregating Indicators of Quality and Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) in the Product-Improvement Process

“…The quality and environmental indicators are aggregated according to a simplified mathematical model based on which direction of product improvement is determined. As already mentioned, various methods were used at the individual stages of the procedure, including the SMARTER method [29], a survey with a Likert scale [25], the formalised scoring method (PS) [30], life-cycle assessment (LCA) according to ISO 14040 [28], and a modified IPA model (importance-performance analysis) [31][32][33]. The selection of methods was justified in individual stages of the procedure, the general procedure of which is shown in Figure 1.…”