Experimental study of group thermal comfort model

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Abstract
Heating, Ventilating and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems are used to provide adequate thermal comfort to occupants of spaces within buildings. The well-recognized PMV model which represents the `predicted mean vote' (on the thermal sensation scale) of a large population of people exposed to a certain environment is often used by design engineers to determine the size and capacity of HVAC system. In terms of operation, however, due to the differences in personal thermal comfort preferences, it might not be good to determine the room set points based on the general PMV model. In this paper, we extend our previous efforts in modeling the single occupant thermal comfort zone to determining the group occupant thermal comfort zone in an ordinary office environment. Experimental results show that thermal comfort zone for a group of occupants is different from the PMV model.