Influence of Passive Design Parameters on Thermal Comfort of an Office Space in a Building in Delhi

Abstract Energy efficiency measures in buildings, along with maintaining indoor thermal comfort, are increasingly drawing attention. The most widely accepted indices, Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) and Percentage People Dissatisfied (PPD), have been used in this study for evaluating thermal comfort of a small office room in Delhi. Various parameters influencing thermal comfort have been measured for two months and the observations have been used for assessing the PMV and PPD, which have then been compared with the simulation results from IDA ICE 4.7 Beta software, and found to be in agreement. Moreover, a comparison of the PMV values has been done with other indices such as Tropical Summer Index (TSI) and Corrected Effective Temperature (CET). Parametric study for the office room has also been performed to predict the shifts in the comfort levels by changing types and thicknesses of wall as well as roof insulations, provision of blinds, and types of window glazing, using which, the best possible solution to enhance the thermal environment of the office room has been proposed.