Thermal comfort in the havelis of Jaisalmer

This thesis provides a detailed case study of the havelis of Jaisalmer, Rajasthan. Jaisalmer was selected as the study area not only because of the abundance and richness of the havelis in this region, but also because of the extreme nature of the climate in and around the area. In addition, the haveli has the added advantage of being a high-density urban form; economically and ecologically significant in the context of India's rapidly expanding urban population and associated energy and environmental crisis. Environmental data was collected in and around two havelis within the fort, over a period of twelve months, focusing on the larger of the two monitored buildings, Hotel Suraj. In addition a short transverse comfort survey was conducted on the streets of Jaislamer, and subsequently evaluated in the wider context of accepted adaptive model comfort prediction equations. The results of the survey are applied to the assessment of the collected environmental data, in terms of predicted occupant thermal comfort. The relationship between indoor and outdoor temperature is examined in detail and an attempt made to develop indoor temperature prediction equations for each of four long term monitored zones in Hotel Suraj. With all results revealing mass as the governing factor for the modification of climate in the havelis, a substantial portion of this thesis is subsequently focused on developing methodologies for determining the decrement factor and time lag of indoor zones in relation to outdoors. A new finding is the impossibility of a shift in daily temperature cycle of more than 6 hours (or 0.25 of the cycle frequency). Considerable effort has been expended on the visual presentation of data for this study. This has involved the development of two stand-alone computer programs for the presentation of thermal data, included on the CD at the end of this thesis