Investigation of the subjective response to elevated air velocities: climate chamber experiments in Hong Kong

It has been suggested that fans be installed in some train stations and workshops to improve the thermal environment. Before doing so, a set of preliminary experiments on the human responses to draughts at elevated temperatures was performed and is reported in this paper. Twenty people were exposed to an air jet with varying speed in a climatic chamber. Their feelings towards the air draught were surveyed and recorded. For higher values of air speed, some of them felt draught would give a comfortable feeling at higher temperatures. The results of this study support the idea of installing fans in some train stations and workshops. Furthermore, an equation on predicting the percentage of people feeling less comfortable was derived by modifying the percentage of dissatisfied in an equation proposed by Fanger et al. to account for this positive feeling of air draught, or beneficial air movement, in places with hot climates.