Thermal comfort chamber study of Nordic elderly people with local cooling devices in warm conditions

Minzhou Chen*, Azin Velashjerdi Farahani, Simo Kilpeläinen, Risto Kosonen, Jaafar Younes, Nesreen Ghaddar, Kamel Ghali, Arsen Krikor Melikov

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

110 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

In this study, we investigated the thermal response of Nordic elderly people before and after using local cooling devices in warm conditions. A climate chamber was used to simulate warm environments. We studied three types of local cooling devices: a table fan, an evaporative cooling device, and an air-cooled jacket. A total of 26 elderly participants were recruited for this study. During the experiments, votes of thermal and air movement perception were collected. The elderly voted for a neutral temperature of 26 °C, preferred temperature of 26.5 °C, and an acceptable temperature of 28 °C. Local thermal sensation in the torso areas of the elderly affected their overall thermal sensation more than local thermal sensation in the extremities under warm conditions. When the ambient temperature was risen to 1 °C and 4 °C higher than 26 °C, the behavior pattern of using local cooling devices for the elderly was: 1) with the small rise the use rate reached 50% with the lower speed modes mainly chosen; and 2) the higher rise caused more people to choose higher speed modes. Our findings show that the three local cooling devices can increase thermal acceptability under warm conditions. More than 80% of elderly accepted the 28 °C thermal environment, and less than 80% accepted 32 °C. The acceptance rate for air movement after using devices was decreased and less than 80% in most conditions. Moreover, all devices performed better under low-humidity conditions.
Original languageEnglish
Article number110213
JournalBuilding and Environment
Volume235
Number of pages15
ISSN0360-1323
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023

Keywords

  • Elderly people
  • Local cooling devices
  • Thermal comfort
  • Wwarm environment
  • limate chamber

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Thermal comfort chamber study of Nordic elderly people with local cooling devices in warm conditions'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this