Passive Cooling And Human Comfort

Comfort within buildings is primarily controlled by four major factors: air temperature, mean radiant temperature, humidity and airflow. Each can have a dominating effect. Their effects are not necessarily additive and practically never linear. There are, additionally, other factors which affect comfort including clothing, activity level and climatization. Some psychological triggers, such as certain colors, also seem to affect comfort, and state of mind can have major effects on individual comfort sensations. Comfort zones, therefore, are very generally defined as the zone in which 80 percent of the population will experience the sensation of thermal comfort