Probing the health and thermal comfort of the occupants with respect to indoor environmental quality in a shared office space
Document Type
Conference Proceeding
Publication Date
1-1-2024
Abstract
As people spend a significant amount of time indoor environments, the indoor environment quality (IEQ) can influence individuals’ health over time. In doing so, it is of paramount importance to have an acceptable level of IEQ to provide a safe environment, conducive to health, productivity, and comfort. For proper control of the IEQ, it is important to know the occupants’ preferences along with understanding the ventilation system settings. This study aims to investigate the impact of environmental factors on the occupant’s perception of the environment - both thermal and stress-related. In this regard, an experiment was conducted where students at Louisiana State University participated in two shared rooms with 15 sensors installed in each room to capture environmental variables. Also, Fitbit smartwatches were given to the participants to measure their heart rates as an indicator of comfort and stress during the experiment. The participants’ perceptions of the environment and their stress levels were conducted through a web-delivered survey at the beginning and end of each experiment. Next, artificial neural network (ANN) and recurrent neural network (RNN) algorithms were used to predict heart rate changes during the period of the experiment and their comfort and acceptability of the indoor environment. The results illustrated that normally, participants experienced a reduction in their heart rate from the start to the end of the experiment. The comfort perception scores indicated that participants mostly experienced various feelings of the thermal environment at the start and end of the period.
Publication Source (Journal or Book title)
18th Conference of the International Society of Indoor Air Quality and Climate, INDOOR AIR 2024 - Conference Program and Proceedings
Recommended Citation
Chahardoli, S., Lesan, M., Pang, Z., Jafari, A., Zhu, Y., & Bhattacharya, A. (2024). Probing the health and thermal comfort of the occupants with respect to indoor environmental quality in a shared office space. 18th Conference of the International Society of Indoor Air Quality and Climate, INDOOR AIR 2024 - Conference Program and Proceedings Retrieved from https://repository.lsu.edu/construction_management_pubs/222