Development of the ASHRAE Global Thermal Comfort Database II

Publication date: September 2018
Source:Building and Environment, Volume 142
Author(s): Veronika Földváry Ličina, Toby Cheung, Hui Zhang, Richard de Dear, Thomas Parkinson, Edward Arens, Chungyoon Chun, Stefano Schiavon, Maohui Luo, Gail Brager, Peixian Li, Soazig Kaam, Michael A. Adebamowo, Mary Myla Andamon, Francesco Babich, Chiheb Bouden, Hana Bukovianska, Christhina Candido, Bin Cao, Salvatore Carlucci, David K.W. Cheong, Joon-Ho Choi, Malcolm Cook, Paul Cropper, Max Deuble, Shahin Heidari, Madhavi Indraganti, Quan Jin, Hyojin Kim, Jungsoo Kim, Kyle Konis, Manoj K. Singh, Alison Kwok, Roberto Lamberts, Dennis Loveday, Jared Langevin, Sanyogita Manu, Cornelia Moosmann, Fergus Nicol, Ryozo Ooka, Nigel A. Oseland, Lorenzo Pagliano, Dušan Petráš, Rajan Rawal, Ramona Romero, Hom Bahadur Rijal, Chandra Sekhar, Marcel Schweiker, Federico Tartarini, Shin-ichi Tanabe, Kwok Wai Tham, Despoina Teli, Jorn Toftum, Linda Toledo, Kazuyo Tsuzuki, Renata De Vecchi, Andreas Wagner, Zhaojun Wang, Holger Wallbaum, Lynda Webb, Liu Yang, Yingxin Zhu, Yongchao Zhai, Yufeng Zhang, Xiang Zhou
Recognizing the value of open-source research databases in advancing the art and science of HVAC, in 2014 the ASHRAE Global Thermal Comfort Database II project was launched under the leadership of University of California at Berkeley's Center for the Built Environment and The University of Sydney's Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) Laboratory. The exercise began with a systematic collection and harmonization of raw data from the last two decades of thermal comfort field studies around the world. The ASHRAE Global Thermal Comfort Database II (Comfort Database), now an online, open-source database, includes approximately 81,846 complete sets of objective indoor climatic observations with accompanying “right-here-right-now” subjective evaluations by the building occupants who were exposed to them. The database is intended to support diverse inquiries about thermal comfort in field settings. A simple web-based interface to the database enables filtering on multiple criteria, including building typology, occupancy type, subjects' demographic variables, subjective thermal comfort states, indoor thermal environmental criteria, calculated comfort indices, environmental control criteria and outdoor meteorological information. Furthermore, a web-based interactive thermal comfort visualization tool has been developed that allows end-users to quickly and interactively explore the data.