EFFECTS OF AIR TURBULENCE ON HUMAN THERMAL SENSATI

Air movement can provide desirable cooling in "warm" conditions, but it can also cause unhappy feelings. This study focuses on the effects of air turbulence on human thermal sensations through nvestigating the preferred air velocity within the temperature range of 26℃ and 30.5℃. Subjects in an environmental chamber were allowed to adjust air movement as they pleased while answering a series of questions about their thermal comfort. From the analysis of the results, operative temperature, turbulence intensity and subject all have effects on preferred velocities. The increased temperature enhances the discreteness of the preferred velocity, while the increased turbulence decreases and concentrates the preferred velocity. Most subjects can achieve comfort under the experimental conditions after adjusting the air velocity as they pleased. The temperature has more significant effect on the comfort vote than turbulence intensity of the air movement. Turbulence of the air movement may induce draft in cool-to-neutral conditions, while it can release drafty risk in neutral -to-warm conditions. The annoying effect by the air pressure at higher temperature should not be ignored.