Field measurement of human thermal comfort in winter across China

Energy use in building for heating depends on the thermal comfort requirements of the occupants. Personal thermal comfort and clothing behaviours in buildings during winter were studied. The Chinese Thermal Comfort Database contains 41977 sets of data which are from five climatic zones: Severe cold, Cold, Hot Summer and Cold Winter, Hot Summer and Warm Winter and Temperate zones. The database includes indoor and outdoor thermal environmental parameters and thermal responses of the occupants. 14646 sets of data from winter conditions in buildings were screened for analysis. Clothing insulation in Hot Summers and Cold Winter region was classified into seven levels for further studies. Logistic regression was adopted to estimate the change of thermal sensation in the response to indoor operative temperatures. The results indicated that the neutral temperature ranges for occupants in 1.0-clo garments were [17.0 - 24.1 °C] in Severe cold zone, [15.4 - 24.0 °C] in Cold zone and [15.0 - 23.1 °C] in Hot Summer and Cold Winter zone. Adding clothing insulation improves occupants’ thermal comfort in winter, but the limitation is maximum clothing insulation of 1.9 clo. The study provides a reference for the creation of comfortable thermal environments with a low energy use.