Thermal comfort assessment at parcel and logistic industry: A field study in Malaysia

Abstract

This paper presents the workers thermal sensation votes and perception of the thermal environment in air conditioning at one of the workspace in Malaysian parcel and logistic industry. The environment factors examined was the relative humidity (%), wind speed (m/s), air temperature (oC) and CO2 (ppm) of the surrounding workstation area. These factors were measured using custom integrated thermal comfort apparatus namely as Thermal Comfort Equipment developed by Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, which is capable of measuring various environmental factors. The time series data of fluctuating level of environment factors were plotted to identify the significant changes and patterns among the factors. Then the thermal comfort of the workers was assessed by using ISO Standard 7730 and thermal sensation scale by using Predicted Mean Vote (PMV). Further Predicted Percentage Dissatisfied (PPD) is used to estimate the thermal comfort satisfaction of the occupant. Finally the PMV and PPD were plotted to present the thermal comfort scenario of workers involved in related workspace. The results revealed that the thermal comfort at the particular workplace was warming followed by thermal sensation and likely to be dissatisfied by dominant of occupants. The results also indicated that the CO2 and index of clothing (clo) dominated the parameters of comfort to the occupants.