Abstract
The concept of effective temperature, introduced by Houghten and Yaglou in 1923, stands as one of the major contributions to thermal comfort research. However, because it tends to overestimate the effects of humidity at cold temperatures and underestimate its effect at high temperatures, a new effective temperature index was proposed by Gagge. It is based on constant body wettedness caused by regulatory sweating. This paper describes a study in which the responses of 1600 subjects who were tested at 20 dry bulb temperatures at each of 8 relative humidities were treated by probit analysis. The results yielded two equations, one predicting “cold discomfort” and one predicting “warm discomfort”. The predicted percentage of people who will be dissatisfied was determined and is incorporated in an easily-read psychrometric chart. The results are discussed in terms of the new ASHRAE Comfort Standard and the Federal Energy Guidelines that mandates 65 F maximum for winter heating and 78 F mimimum for summer cooling.
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