3.2. Steady and uniform conditions
Human responses to the steady and uniform conditions were analyzed and the results are shown in Fig. 3. Each point in the figure represents the mean vote of all subjects’ responses for each condition. It can be seen that a straight line fits the data well (R2¼0.95).
Under the steady and uniform conditions, overall thermal sensation and comfort are correlated with each other closely. Thermal sensation mean vote of 1.25 corresponds to thermal comfort mean vote of 0, that is to say, the subjects first felt uncomfortable when their whole body thermal sensation is 1.25, which is more rigid than the definition proposed by Gagge et al. [7] and Fanger [12].
3.3. Steady and non-uniform conditions
Human responses to the steady and non-uniform conditions were analyzed and the results are shown in Fig. 4. Each point represents the mean vote of all subjects’ responses for each condition. Compared with the linear relationship obtained in the uniform conditions, no linear relationships exist between overall thermal sensation and comfort under the non-uniform conditions. Subjects feel more uncomfortable with the non-uniform environment than the uniform one while their overall thermal sensations are the same.
It can be seen from Fig. 4 that each thermal sensation vote corresponds to a wide range of thermal comfort, for instance, thermal neutrality (0.2