10 research outputs found

    Test rooms to study human comfort in buildings: A review of controlled experiments and facilities

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    Occupants’ comfort perception affects building energy consumptions. To improve the understanding of human comfort, which is crucial to reduce energy demand, laboratory experiments with humans in controlled environments (test rooms) are fundamental, but their potential also depends on the characteristic of each research facility. Nowadays, there is no common understanding for definitions, concepts, and procedures related to human comfort studies performed in test rooms. Identifying common features would allow standardising test procedures, reproducing the same experiments in different contexts, and sharing knowledge and test possibilities. This review identifies 187 existing test rooms worldwide: 396 papers were systematically selected, thoroughly reviewed, and analysed in terms of performed experiments and related test room details. The review highlights a rising interest in the topic during the last years, since 46% of related papers has been published between 2016 and 2020. A growing interest in non-thermal sensory domains (such as visual and air quality) and multi-domain studies about occupant's whole comfort emerged from the results. These research trends have entailed a change in the way test rooms are designed, equipped and controlled, progressively becoming more realistic inhabitable environments. Nevertheless, some lacks in comfort investigation are highlighted: some continents (like Africa and South America) and climate zones are found to be underrepresented, while involved subjects are mainly students performing office tasks. This review aspires to guide scientists and professionals toward the improved design or the audit of test room experimental facilities, especially in countries and climate zones where human comfort indoors is under-studied.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Indoor Environmen

    Smart building management vs. intuitive human control—Lessons learnt from an office building in Hungary

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    Smart building management and control are adopted nowadays to achieve zero-net energy use in buildings. However, without considering the human dimension, technologies alone do not necessarily guarantee high performance in buildings. An office building was designed and built according to state-of-the-art design and energy management principles in 2008. Despite the expectations of high performance, the owner was facing high utility bills and low user comfort in the building located in Budapest, Hungary. The objective of the project was to evaluate the energy performance and comfort indices of the building, to identify the causes of malfunction and to elaborate a comprehensive energy concept. Firstly, current building conditions and operation parameters were evaluated. Our investigation found that the state-of-the-art building management system was in good conditions but it was operated by building operators and occupants who are not aware of the building management practice. The energy consumption patterns of the building were simulated with energy modelling software. The baseline model was calibrated to annual measured energy consumption, using actual occupant behaviour and presence, based on results of self-reported surveys, occupancy sensors and fan-coil usage data. Realistic occupant behaviour models can capture diversity of occupant behaviour and better represent the real energy use of the building. This way our findings and the effect of our proposed improvements could be more reliable. As part of our final comprehensive energy concept, we proposed intervention measures that would increase indoor thermal comfort and decrease energy consumption of the building. A parametric study was carried out to evaluate and quantify energy, comfort and return on investment of each measure. It was found that in the best case the building could save 23% of annual energy use. Future work includes the follow-up of: occupant reactions to intervention measures, the realized energy savings, the measurement of occupant satisfaction and behavioural changes

    Test rooms to study human comfort in buildings: a review of controlled experiments and facilities

    No full text
    Occupants’ comfort perception affects building energy consumptions. To improve the understanding of human comfort, which is crucial to reduce energy demand, laboratory experiments with humans in controlled environments (test rooms) are fundamental, but their potential also depends on the characteristic of each research facility. Nowadays, there is no common understanding for definitions, concepts, and procedures related to human comfort studies performed in test rooms. Identifying common features would allow standardising test procedures, reproducing the same experiments in different contexts, and sharing knowledge and test possibilities. This review identifies 187 existing test rooms worldwide: 396 papers were systematically selected, thoroughly reviewed, and analysed in terms of performed experiments and related test room details. The review highlights a rising interest in the topic during the last years, since 46% of related papers has been published between 2016 and 2020. A growing interest in non-thermal sensory domains (such as visual and air quality) and multi-domain studies about occupant's whole comfort emerged from the results. These research trends have entailed a change in the way test rooms are designed, equipped and controlled, progressively becoming more realistic inhabitable environments. Nevertheless, some lacks in comfort investigation are highlighted: some continents (like Africa and South America) and climate zones are found to be underrepresented, while involved subjects are mainly students performing office tasks. This review aspires to guide scientists and professionals toward the improved design or the audit of test room experimental facilities, especially in countries and climate zones where human comfort indoors is under-studied

    Test rooms to study human comfort in buildings: A review of controlled experiments and facilities

    No full text
    Occupants' comfort perception affects building energy consumptions. To improve the understanding of human comfort, which is crucial to reduce energy demand, laboratory experiments with humans in controlled environments (test rooms) are fundamental, but their potential also depends on the characteristic of each research facility. Nowadays, there is no common understanding for definitions, concepts, and procedures related to human comfort studies performed in test rooms. Identifying common features would allow standardising test procedures, reproducing the same experiments in different contexts, and sharing knowledge and test possibilities. This review identifies 187 existing test rooms worldwide: 396 papers were systematically selected, thoroughly reviewed, and analysed in terms of performed experiments and related test room details. The review highlights a rising interest in the topic during the last years, since 46% of related papers has been published between 2016 and 2020. A growing interest in non-thermal sensory domains (such as visual and air quality) and multi-domain studies about occupant's whole comfort emerged from the results. These research trends have entailed a change in the way test rooms are designed, equipped and controlled, progressively becoming more realistic inhabitable environments. Nevertheless, some lacks in comfort investigation are highlighted: some continents (like Africa and South America) and climate zones are found to be underrepresented, while involved subjects are mainly students performing office tasks. This review aspires to guide scientists and professionals toward the improved design or the audit of test room experimental facilities, especially in countries and climate zones where human comfort indoors is under-studied.HOBE

    Test rooms to study human comfort in buildings: A review of controlled experiments and facilities

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    Occupants’ comfort perception affects building energy consumptions. To improve the understanding of human comfort, which is crucial to reduce energy demand, laboratory experiments with humans in controlled environments (test rooms) are fundamental, but their potential also depends on the characteristic of each research facility. Nowadays, there is no common understanding for definitions, concepts, and procedures related to human comfort studies performed in test rooms. Identifying common features would allow standardising test procedures, reproducing the same experiments in different contexts, and sharing knowledge and test possibilities. This review identifies 187 existing test rooms worldwide: 396 papers were systematically selected, thoroughly reviewed, and analysed in terms of performed experiments and related test room details. The review highlights a rising interest in the topic during the last years, since 46% of related papers has been published between 2016 and 2020. A growing interest in non-thermal sensory domains (such as visual and air quality) and multi-domain studies about occupant's whole comfort emerged from the results. These research trends have entailed a change in the way test rooms are designed, equipped and controlled, progressively becoming more realistic inhabitable environments. Nevertheless, some lacks in comfort investigation are highlighted: some continents (like Africa and South America) and climate zones are found to be underrepresented, while involved subjects are mainly students performing office tasks. This review aspires to guide scientists and professionals toward the improved design or the audit of test room experimental facilities, especially in countries and climate zones where human comfort indoors is under-studied
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