An adaptive thermal comfort approach in air-conditioned buildings in the tropical hot-and-humid climates

The air-conditioned office building design in the tropical hot-and-humid climates has seldomtaken into account adaptation principle to thermal comfort. This induces the occupants to findcomfort at the pre-determined comfort criterion in air-conditioned enclosure and they soondevelop a higher expectation of homogeneity that in turn leads to demand of coolertemperatures. Though the research knowledge is large, practical implementation has aptlyignored the variability of individuals comfort criteria. Such complexity and difficulty hasoften resulted in static low temperatures and in turn leading to cooling energy wastage. Asrecourse, the idea of dynamic adaptive thermal comfort approach is used to solve what mayprove to be novel and complex problems in indoor cooling in the hot-and-humid climates. Theproposed adaptive approach is deemed desirable for it could help to study the adaptive patternof subjects with respect to their physiological needs in thermal comfort through passage oftime.