A field study of thermal comfort for primary school children in naturally ventilated classrooms in the hot summer and cold winter zone of China

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Zheng, P., Chen, Y., Du, C., Li, B., Kalmár, F. and Yao, R. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4269-7224 (2026) A field study of thermal comfort for primary school children in naturally ventilated classrooms in the hot summer and cold winter zone of China. Energy and Buildings, 364. ISSN 0378-7788 doi: 10.1016/j.enbuild.2026.117619

Abstract/Summary

A better understanding of children's thermal comfort in primary school classrooms is essential for designing and operating to create healthy, thermal environments that benefit pupils’ learning performance. The aim of this research is to investigate and analyse the children's neutral temperature across different seasons and the applicability of existing adult-based comfort models for evaluating children's thermal comfort, which have not been fully explored. A field study was conducted in four naturally ventilated classrooms with 162 children aged 9-12 years; and 4,294 valid questionnaires were obtained. The results show that the neutral temperature for children changes with the seasons. Based on the linear regression of all data, the overall neutral temperature is 24.8℃, and children can adapt well to variations in operative temperature. Additionally, the PMV and ASHRAE 55 adaptive evaluation methods based on adult data do not agree well with average thermal sensation votes (AMV) of children. The adaptive predicted mean vote (aPMV) model is better suited to evaluating children's thermal sensation. This study is significant for understanding thermal comfort and establishing suitable thermal comfort evaluation models for children in the naturally ventilated classrooms in hot summer and cold winter zones.

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Item Type Article
URI https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/id/eprint/129792
Identification Number/DOI 10.1016/j.enbuild.2026.117619
Refereed Yes
Divisions Science > School of the Built Environment > Energy and Environmental Engineering group
Uncontrolled Keywords Children; Thermal comfort; Primary school; Natural ventilation; Hot summer and cold winter zone
Publisher Elsevier
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