PMV Comfort Map

PMV thermal comfort map recipe for Pollination.

Compute spatially-resolved PMV thermal comfort from a Honeybee model and EPW. This recipe also computes operative temperature or (optionally) Standard Effective Temperature (SET). Raw results are written into a results/ folder and include CSV matrices of hourly temperatures, thermal conditions and PMV. Processed metrics of Thermal Comfort Percent (TCP) can be found in the metrics/ folder. Input conditions to the comfort model are written to an initial_results/conditions folder.

Methods

This recipe uses EnergyPlus to obtain surface temperatures and indoor air temperatures + humidities. Outdoor air temperatures, relative humidities, and air speeds are taken directly from the EPW. All outdoor points are assumed to be at one half of the EPW meteorological wind speed (effectively representing wind speed at ground/human height).

Longwave radiant temperatures are achieved by computing spherical view factors from each sensor to the surfaces of the model using Radiance. These view factors are then multiplied by the surface temperatures output by EnergyPlus to yield longwave MRT at each sensor. All indoor shades (eg. those representing furniture) are assumed to be at the room-average MRT. For outdoor sensors, the EnergyPlus outdoor surface temperatures are used and each sensor's sky view is multiplied by the EPW sky temperature to account for longwave radiant exchange with the sky. All outdoor context shades and the ground are assumed to be at the EPW air temperature unless they have been modeled as Honeybee rooms.

A Radiance-based enhanced 2-phase method is used for all shortwave MRT calculations, which precisely represents direct sun by tracing a ray from each sensor to the solar position. The energy properties of the model geometry are what determine the reflectance and transmittance of the Radiance materials in this shortwave calculation.

To determine Thermal Comfort Percent (TCP), the occupancy schedules of the energy model are used. Any hour of the occupancy schedule that is 0.1 or greater will be considered occupied. For outdoor sensors, all hours are considered occupied.