Adaptive comfort relations and comfort temperature ranges from a field study in undergraduate laboratories

To ascertain comfort levels and effectiveness of available adaptive opportunities for classrooms in the hot-humid regions of India, a thermal comfort field study was conducted in an undergraduate laboratory class in Kharagpur. The study, carried out between January and April 2013, had participation from 121 students and yielded 338 responses. Analysis of the results showed that comfort temperatures found in the field study had close resemblance to the predicted comfort temperatures evaluated from certain existing standard adaptive comfort equations. This was in spite of the standards having been developed using observations from studies that had occupants with distinctly lower metabolic rates than encountered in the current study. This is ascribed to the level of acclimatization among the subjects as well as the availability of more adaptive avenues/more flexibility, during laboratory classes.