A new predictive thermal sensation index of human response

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the problem of determining a hu man thermal sensation index that can be used in feedback control of HVAC sy stems. We present a new approach based on fuzzy logic to estimate the therm al comfort level depending on the state of the following six variables: the air temperature, the mean radiant temperature, the relative humidity, the air velocity, the activity level of occupants and their clothing insulation . The new fuzzy thermal sensation index is calculated implicitly as the con sequence of linguistic rules that describe human's comfort level as the res ult of the interaction of the environmental variables with the occupant's p ersonal parameters. The fuzzy comfort model is deduced on the basis of lear ning Fanger's 'Predicted Mean Vote' (PMV) equation. Unlike Fanger's PMV, th e new fuzzy PMV calculation does not require an iterative solution and can be easily adjusted depending on the specific thermal sensation of users. Th ese characteristics make it an attractive index for feedback control of HVA C systems. The simulation results show that the new fuzzy PMV is as accurat e as Fanger's PMV. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.