Introduction to Thermal Comfort

This section gives an overview of how human thermal comfort is affected by the body's physiology, and the external conditions surrounding the body.

Thermal comfort is defined as that condition of mind that expresses satisfaction with the thermal environment. Dissatisfaction may be caused by warm or cool discomfort of the body as a whole or may be caused by an unwanted cooling (or heating) of one particular part of the body.

Due to individual differences, it is impossible to specify a thermal environment that will satisfy everybody. There will always be a percentage of dissatisfied occupants. But it is possible to specify environments (using indices later defined) predicted to be acceptable by a certain percentage of the occupants.

Introduction

Human Physiology

Comfort Control

Animations