Essay About Thermal Comfort

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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1. Background The region of the Earth surrounding the equator is known as the tropics. Hence, countries that are situated near to the Earth’s equator will experience tropical climate. The temperature in the tropics is fairly constant throughout the year with an average of at least 18 °C. Malaysia is one of the countries situated in the tropics. Being near to the Earth’s equator, Malaysia is exposed to abundant of sunshine (solar radiation). According to the Malaysian Meteorological Department, the characteristic of the climate in Malaysia are uniform temperature, high humidity and abundance of rainfall. Hence, Malaysia can be characterized as a tropical country with hot and humid conditions (Malaysian Meteorological …show more content…

According to ASHRAE Standard 55 (2010), thermal comfort is defined as the condition of mind that expresses satisfaction with the thermal environment. The satisfaction with the thermal environment applies not only to the overall thermal sensation of the body but to certain parts of the body such as the head, leg, hand, etc. The perceptions of different individuals to thermal comfort are different even for similar thermal environment since thermal comfort is based on the condition of mind. Some individuals might be able to tolerate extremely cold temperatures yet feeling comfortable whereas some might not be able to do so. Thus, the environmental conditions for thermal comfort differ for different individuals. Some of the more common methods used to evaluate thermal comfort of individuals are objective assessment, subjective assessment and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method. Objective and subjective assessments have always been the preferred method to evaluate thermal comfort of individuals whereas CFD has only been increasing used in the last two decades. Therefore, there is very little research done on thermal comfort of individuals by using

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