UTCI Comfort Map

UTCI thermal comfort map recipe for Pollination.

Compute spatially-resolved Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI) and heat/cold stress conditions an EPW and Honeybee model. Raw results are written into a results/ folder and include CSV matrices of hourly UTCI temperatures, thermal conditions and heat stress classifications. Processed metrics of Thermal Comfort Percent (TCP) can be found in the metrics/ folder.

Methods

This recipe uses EnergyPlus to obtain longwave radiant temperatures and indoor air temperatures. The outdoor air temperature and air speed are taken directly from the EPW. A Radiance-based enhanced 2-phase method is used for all shortwave MRT calculations, which includes an accurate direct sun calculation using precise solar positions. The energy properties of the model geometry are what determine the outcome of the simulation and the model's SensorGrids are what determine where the comfort mapping occurs.

To determine Thermal Comfort Percent (TCP), all hours of the outdoors are considered occupied. For any indoor sensor, 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.