Occupant behavior and thermal comfort field analysis in typical educational research institution A case study

Abstract

An experimental field study has been conducted for typical educational research building facility (office building). The research data was gathered by the systematic monitoring of the offices and adaptive occupant behavior during the typical working day in the spring period. Different sensors and data loggers for temperature, relative humidity, CO2 concentration, had been mounted in order to collect data for analysis of thermal comfort conditions. Moreover, occupant surveys and interviews in form of questionnaire were also brought to examine the psychological and social impacts of the occupants' behavior regarding energy consumption. The inductive scientific method is used for data processing, i. e. descriptive and inferential statistical analysis of the results was made. Based on the analysis of the conducted study, it was found that thermal environment of the observed building is within the standards (i. e. specific parameters are within the range) and that the occupants are generally satisfied with thermal conditions in their offices. However, they do not pay much attention to conserving energy which is an important finding as it is directly related to the energy consumption. Thus, more attention should be directed to the education of the users and in general, to enable energy savings in the future.