scholarly journals Effects of urban street trees on human thermal comfort and physiological indices: a case study in Changchun city, China

Author(s):  
Zhibin Ren ◽  
Hongbo Zhao ◽  
Yao Fu ◽  
Lu Xiao ◽  
Yulin Dong

AbstractPlanting trees along urban streets is one of the most important strategies to improve the urban thermal environment. However, the net impacts of urban street trees on human thermal comfort and physiological parameters are still less clear. On three similar east–west orientated streets with different degrees of tree cover—low (13%), medium (35%), and high (75%), urban microclimatic parameters and human physiological indices for six male students were simultaneously measured on three cloudless days in summer 2018. The results show that the differences in tree cover were predominant in influencing urban thermal environment and comfort. The street with the highest tree cover had significantly lower physiological equivalent temperature (PET) and more comfortable than the other two streets. The frequency of strong heat stress (PET > 35 °C) was 64%, 11%, and 0%, respectively, for streets with low, medium, and high tree cover. For the six male university students, human physiological indices varied greatly across the three streets with different tree cover. Systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, and pulse rate increased with decreasing tree cover. The results also suggest that urban thermal environment and comfort had considerable impact on human physiological parameters. Our study provides reasons for urban planners to plant trees along streets to improve the thermal environment and promote urban sustainability.

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 899 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jongseong Gwak ◽  
Motoki Shino ◽  
Kazutaka Ueda ◽  
Minoru Kamata

Thermal factors not only affect the thermal comfort sensation of occupants, but also affect their arousal level, productivity, and health. Therefore, it is necessary to control thermal factors appropriately. In this study, we aim to design a thermal environment that improves both the arousal level and thermal comfort of the occupants. To this end, we investigated the relationships between the physiological indices, subjective evaluation values, and task performance under several conditions of changes in the indoor ambient temperature. In particular, we asked subjects to perform a mathematical task and subjective evaluation related to their thermal comfort sensation and drowsiness levels. Simultaneously, we measured their physiological parameters, such as skin temperature, respiration rate, electroencephalography, and electrocardiography, continuously. We investigated the relationship between the comfort sensation and drowsiness level of occupants, and the physiological indices. From the results, it was confirmed that changes in the indoor ambient temperature can improve both the thermal comfort and the arousal levels of occupants. Moreover, we proposed the evaluation indices of the thermal comfort and the drowsiness level of occupants using physiological indices.


2020 ◽  
Vol 103 (3) ◽  
pp. 003685042094299
Author(s):  
Liang Zhang ◽  
Liangkui Qi ◽  
Jianhua Liu ◽  
Qingqing Wu

In this article, the thermal environment and the human thermal comfort of car cabin under different driving states in summer were studied experimentally. The weighted predictive mean vote model and the weighted equivalent temperature model were used for calculation and compared with the experimental values. The experimental results show that the air temperature and relative humidity distribution in cabin are affected by the space position and driving state. The temperature of the cabin seat, which is affected by solar radiation and crew, in the heating stage is slightly higher than the air temperature, while the cooling rate in the cooling stage is much lower than the air temperature. The predictive mean vote model and the equivalent temperature model are basically consistent with the actual thermal comfort of human body under the idle and driving conditions with the change of time. The prediction accuracy of the two models under the idle condition is higher than that under the driving condition, and the overall prediction accuracy of the equivalent temperature model is higher than that of the predictive mean vote model.


2015 ◽  
Vol 124 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 55-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew M. Coutts ◽  
Emma C. White ◽  
Nigel J. Tapper ◽  
Jason Beringer ◽  
Stephen J. Livesley

Atmosphere ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 1144
Author(s):  
Dimitrios Antoniadis ◽  
Nikolaos Katsoulas ◽  
Dimitris Κ. Papanastasiou

Urban outdoor thermal conditions, and its impacts on the health and well-being for the city inhabitants have reached increased attention among biometeorological studies during the last two decades. Children are considered more sensitive and vulnerable to hot ambient conditions compared to adults, and are affected strongly by their thermal environment. One of the urban outdoor environments that children spend almost one third of their school time is the schoolyard. The aims of the present manuscript were to review studies conducted worldwide, in order to present the biophysical characteristics of the typical design of the urban schoolyard. This was done to assess, in terms of bioclimatology, the interactions between the thermal environment and the children’s body, to discuss the adverse effects of thermal environment on children, especially the case of heat stress, and to propose measures that could be applied to improve the thermal environment of schoolyards, focusing on vegetation. Human thermal comfort monitoring tools are mainly developed for adults, thus, further research is needed to adapt them to children. The schemes that are usually followed to design urban schoolyards create conditions that favour the exposure of children to excessive heat, inducing high health risks to them. The literature survey showed that typical urban schoolyard design (i.e., dense surface materials, absence of trees) triggered high surface temperatures (that may exceed 58 °C) and increased absorption of radiative heat load (that may exceed 64 °C in terms of Mean Radiant Temperature) during a clear day with intense solar radiation. Furthermore, vegetation cover has a positive impact on schoolyard’s microclimate, by improving thermal comfort and reducing heat stress perception of children. Design options for urban schoolyards and strategies that can mitigate the adverse effects of heat stress are proposed with focus on vegetation cover that affect positively their thermal environment and improve their aesthetic and functionality.


Author(s):  
Atsumasa Yoshida ◽  
Yasuhiro Shimazaki ◽  
Shinichi Kinoshita ◽  
Ryota Suzuki

There is an increased world attention on environmental issues with the global trend of environmental degradation. Especially thermal environment was highly concerned as human safety. We have been focused on creation of amenity environment with energy-saving way. This study is uncommonly dealing with human feeling for human thermal comfort, that is to say quantification of environment has been done. The feeling of comfort is mixed sense and can be totally easier to improve compared with straightforward way, and this may lead to energy and cost saving way of improvement. Moreover, this is human-oriented and can reflect humans’ wishes. Since thermal comfort index is useful tool for understanding the present state and evaluating the impact of countermeasures, effectiveness of human thermal load which is thermal comfort index based on energy balance of human body was examined. The human thermal comfort around the human body in outdoor is influenced by six dominant factors; air temperature, humidity, solar radiation, wind speed, metabolism and clothing. The difference between indoor and outdoor is expressed mainly as non-uniform and unsteady. Therefore, the unsteady responses of each dominant factors were examined and clarified human thermal load is quite good estimation of human thermal comfort. In steady state and even in unsteady state, thermal comfort can be obtained by using human thermal load on the whole. The reason is human thermal load consider the amount of physiology and also weather parameters. In the process of creating energy balance model of human, clothing material was deeply considered. For establishing better thermal environment, clothing material is of great use, because clothing material has an impact on thermal exchange between exterior environment and human body and more easy way to improve in 6 factors. The traditional treatment of clothing in human science was only resistance of heat transfer and this was not enough for all clothing effects. In daily life, effect of humidity exists and moisture property is required. Moreover color of material has impact on energy balance in clothing material. In order to show a way of better thermal environment, the heat and the moisture transfer coefficients on clothing material, radiative properties, and additional properties such as convection heat transfer coefficient were measured, and energy flow of clothing material was totally investigated. Finally, the effects of clothing material for human thermal comfort were predicted and this energy balance human model has become much better model.


2004 ◽  
Vol 92 (6) ◽  
pp. 721-727 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. P. Rugh ◽  
R. B. Farrington ◽  
D. Bharathan ◽  
A. Vlahinos ◽  
R. Burke ◽  
...  

2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (5) ◽  
pp. 629-651 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dengjia Wang ◽  
Xiaowen Wang ◽  
Yanfeng Liu ◽  
Penghao Chen ◽  
Jiaping Liu

This study proposes a novel heated bed that can heat the whole room in the daytime and heat the surroundings of the bed at night. The conditions of conversion between the daytime and nighttime are achieved by the opening and closing of the fan and vents. The simplified calculation method of heat dissipation of the bed was obtained via the flow and heat transfer process analysis in two heating modes. Numerical simulations of heat dissipation and indoor thermal environment under different conditions in the daytime and nighttime were performed using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to master the indoor temperature distribution characteristics. The simulation results were compared with the experimental results and show good agreement. The results show that the maximum of heat dissipation can reach 1300 W in the daytime and the indoor thermal environment can meet the human thermal comfort requirement. At night, the bed can create a high-temperature circle around it, which can ensure the sleep thermal comfort of the human body at a cooler indoor thermal environment, whose temperature can be 5°C lower than normal conditions. The heated bed can achieve the time-sharing district heating of room and reduce the heating energy consumption significantly. This study can provide the design and selection basis for the heated bed.


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