THERMAL SCIENCE

International Scientific Journal

Tamara S. Bajc

,

Miloš J. Banjac

,

Maja Todorović

,

Žana Stevanović

EXPERIMENTAL AND STATISTICAL SURVEY ON LOCAL THERMAL COMFORT IMPACT ON WORKING PRODUCTIVITY LOSS IN UNIVERSITY CLASSROOMS

ABSTRACT
The paper presents an experimental analysis of the relationship between local thermal comfort and productivity loss in classrooms. The experimental investigation was performed in a real university classroom during the winter semester in city of Belgrade. Measurements were taken for four scenarios, with different indoor comfort conditions. Variations were made by setting the central heating system on/off, adding an additional heat source to provoke higher indoor temperatures, and measuring the radiant asymmetry impact. Innovative questionnaires were developed especially for the research, in order to investigate students’ subjective feelings about local thermal comfort and indoor environmental quality. Local predicted mean vote and predicted percentage dissatisfied indices were calculated using data measured in situ. The results were compared to existing models recommended in literature and European and ASHRAE standards. Student productivity was evaluated using novel tests, designed to fit the purposes of the research. Surveys were conducted for 19 days under different thermal conditions, during lectures in a real classroom, using a sample of 240 productivity test results in total. Using the measured data, new correlations between the predicted mean vote, CO2, personal factor and productivity loss were developed. The research findings imply that local thermal comfort is an important factor that can impact productivity, but the impact of the personal factor is of tremendous importance, together with CO2 concentration in the classroom. [Projects of the Serbian Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, Grant no. 33047 and Grant no. III 42008]
KEYWORDS
PMV, PPD, local thermal comfort, working productivity loss, IEQ
PAPER SUBMITTED: 2017-09-20
PAPER REVISED: 2018-05-21
PAPER ACCEPTED: 2018-05-24
PUBLISHED ONLINE: 2018-06-03
DOI REFERENCE: https://doi.org/10.2298/TSCI170920160B
CITATION EXPORT: view in browser or download as text file
THERMAL SCIENCE YEAR 2019, VOLUME 23, ISSUE Issue 1, PAGES [379 - 392]
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Experimental and statistical survey on local thermal comfort impact on working productivity loss in university classrooms

© 2024 Society of Thermal Engineers of Serbia. Published by the Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences, National Institute of the Republic of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International licence