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Design with Comfort: Expanding the psychrometric chart with radiation and
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 Design with Comfort: Expanding the psychrometric
chart with radiation and convection dimensions
Eric Teitelbauma,1 , Prageeth Jayathissab , Clayton Millerb , Forrest Meggersa
a
CHAOS Laboratory, School of Architecture, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
b
Building and Urban Data Science (BUDS) Lab, Dept. of Building, School of Design and
Environment (SDE), National University of Singapore (NUS)

Abstract
We present a makeover of the psychrometric chart using a new color-shading
method that allows the chart to be considered comfortable based on the varia-
tion of non-air related comfort parameters such as mean radiant temperature,
air movement, and the transitional behavior of occupants. These represen-
tations allows us to think outside the thermal comfort box with the use of
innovative thermal design and comfort feedback for occupants. Based on
the Olgyay bioclimatic chart allowing architects to “Design with Climate”,
the new chart representations are applied over a wide range of conditions
to illustrate a physical basis for expanding comfort zones. An open-source
repository and web app is available for designers and researchers to reproduce
the charts and color-shading for their own projects.
Keywords: Psychrometric Chart, Data Visualization, Radiant Cooling,
Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ), Thermal Comfort, Adaptive
Comfort, Visual Analytics

1 1. Introduction
2 The psychrometric chart is a widely-used visualization of the properties
3 of air for the purpose of building systems design and operations. Since the
4 nearly parallel publications of the first Mollier diagram in 1904 and the first
5 psychrometric chart by Willis Carrier in 1911, Anglo-American organizations
6 like ASHRAE have published the psychrometric chart extensively for use by

∗
Corresponding author email: eteitelb@princeton.edu

Preprint submitted to Energy and Buildings July 22, 2019

 7 engineers and architects [1]. For most of its history, the psychrometric chart
8 has focused on the energy and moisture containing properties of air. How-
9 ever, a milestone in the history of the comfort conditioning industry arose
10 when Victor Olgyay published his 1963 book, Design with Climate [2]. This
11 book was a response to the widespread increase of air-based conditioning sys-
12 tems. The book covered representative climate scenarios around the United
13 States and included charts that used the psychrometric axes as a basis. While
14 not truly conforming psychrometric charts, they were clearly recognizable as
15 a relationship between humidity, temperature, and comfort. Radiation was
16 added as a limit for requiring shade in certain climatic conditions. A con-
17 tour relating to metabolic rate was also included, indicating when light work
18 was acceptable, for instance. Such a relationship allows architects to design
19 with the local climate, through the system dynamics between humans and
20 environments. The efforts of this paper seek to resume the work of Olgyay
21 by enhancing the psychrometric chart using color-shading to provide infor-
22 mation related to the comfort-related variables of air movement (convection)
23 and mean radiant temperature (radiation).
24 Many major milestones in comfort research and graphical dissemination
25 have occurred including the Olgyay chart in 1963. Givoni’s bioclimatic chart
26 [3] in 1976 demonstrates the applicability of certain design strategies for
27 comfort relative to regional climate conditions. Building off this work, Arens
28 et al. [4] plot many of these variables on the psychrometric axes. Likewise,
29 Kessling used a Perceived Temperature line for outdoor comfort [5], referred
30 to as the bio-meteorological chart. Perhaps most well known is the Center
31 for the Built Environment’s online comfort tool [6], which is a visualization
32 of ASHRAE’s standard 55, with adaptive comfort options.
33 Adaptive comfort [7] offers extraordinary insight towards simplifying com-
34 fort parameters on a 2D axis, noting that humans can physiologically adapt
35 comfort preferences based on prevailing outdoor conditions, and combining
36 the effects of radiation and convection in the operative temperature. Such a
37 framework has been remarkably successful for setting standards for natural
38 ventilation systems [8, 9], and promising work has been done showing greater
39 fidelity to comfort perception when heat balance approaches are combined
40 with adaptive approaches [10, 11] This work helps graphically demonstrate
41 a heat balance-driven framework for larger comfort zones.
42 Further, using the operative temperature as the setpoint indicator does
43 not explicitly show the contributions to comfort when designing radiant sys-
44 tems. Likewise, prescriptive tools aside from the Kessling’s bio-meteorological

2
45 chart do not directly show tradeoffs between the mean radiant temperature,
46 air temperature, and air speed. Particularly, when invoking the definition
47 of operative temperature in equation 1, by inspection one can see that if
48 tr < ta < tskin as would likely be the case with a radiant cooling system,
49 the operative temperature increases when air speed increases. Such a rela-
50 tionship makes designing a radiant system with a particular setpoint range
51 difficult to extract from the operative temperature framework.
hr tr + hc ta
to = (1)
hc + hr
52 While in general, adding complexity to static psychrometric axes increases
53 in complexity and specificity quickly, the goal of this paper is to build on pre-
54 vious depictions of comfort zones, expanding the comfort zone to the entire
55 psychrometric chart allowing the future use of novel radiant and convection-
56 based systems. The online webtool component of this chart allows users
57 to dynamically change inputs, providing a platform to visualize more di-
58 mensions of the heat balance approach to thermal comfort, contextualizing
59 tradeoffs between air temperature, mean radiant temperature, and air speed
60 with greater detail than traditional adaptive comfort diagrams.
61 Building on the diagrams from Arens [4] and Kessling [5], this framework
62 is the first to truly expand the air based comfort zone and graphically provide
63 answers for how radiation can be used to compensate for any air tempera-
64 ture, or what is the lowest acceptable wind speed for a given metabolic rate.
65 Probing the corners of the psychrometric chart with a heat balance can allow
66 for creative system design, perhaps leveraging ‘free’ heat from evaporation
67 [12] or return condensate [13]. In short, this tool can allow for a simple
68 high-level analysis of the following conditions:

69 • High air temperature (> 30◦ C) compensated for with a low mean ra-
70 diant temperature and no air speed

71 • Low air temperature (< 15◦ C) with a high mean radiant temperature

72 • Required air speeds to provide enough convection for comfort

73 • Required metabolic rate for the presence of wind, i.e. would certain air
74 speeds be uncomfortable in a cool gym

3
 75 • Compared to tools such as the online CBE comfort tool [6], this tool
76 can produce a wider range of air speed and metabolic rate, although
77 they have yet to be experimentally verified.

78 1.1. Using the whole psychrometric chart as a comfort zone

79 This paper gives an overview of how simple color-shading redefines the
80 comfort zone for the chart by adding other dimensions including mean ra-
81 diant temperature (MRT), air movement due to free and forced convention,
82 and the behavior of transient occupants coming and going within spaces.
83 This enables us to move outside the comfort box as any range of air condi-
84 tions can be considered comfortable when radiation, convection, clothing or
85 metabolism levels are included and modulated. In Section 2, we first out-
86 line the methodology and rationale of this process. Finally in Section 4, we
87 conclude with insights on the use of color-shading in the chart and links to
88 the open-source repository of Python code that can be used to reproduce
89 the graphics using comfort parameter data from any other project. We en-
90 courage the reader to visit the web-app at www.comfortch.art and generate
91 their own graphs while reading the paper.

92 2. Methodology
93 Crucial to the notion of designing with comfort and recoupling comfort
94 and architecture is the need to visualize the allowable dynamic shifts be-
95 tween comfort parameters when fixing comfort. Conveying this to designers
96 intuitively can enable integration between geometric form and comfort. Just
97 as the Olgyays’ research presented information on environmental dynamics
98 to enable designing with climate, there remains a gap still bridging comfort
99 and design, human and system, across all comfort variables. However, unlike
100 the 1960’s, we are no longer limited by two dimensional plots, and can ex-
101 plore the dynamism, on which climate, comfort, and controls can be linked
102 by design.
103 Color is a convenient parameter to help illustrate the dynamic nature
104 of comfort variables, particularly when used as a tool to demonstrate the
105 tradeoff between the change in one comfort variable and the required com-
106 pensation by another. Adding a degree of freedom to the thermal perfor-
107 mance and design of spaces imparts a similar degree of freedom to spatial
108 and programmatic design by opening the door to the separation of comfort
109 and ventilation air. For example, energy benefits have been demonstrated

4
110 when latent loads (dehumidification) can be separated from sensible loads
111 (cooling) [14, 15], as these two processes are linked with a conventional air
112 conditioning system yet often are very different in magnitude [16]. Similarly,
113 radiant systems [12] and personal comfort systems [17] can help separate
114 comfort conditioning from required ventilation air. However, recent research
115 has shown that in buildings with radiant systems, there often exists very little
116 separation between the air temperature and mean radiant temperature [18],
117 failing to take advantage of the separation of ventilation and comfort loads.
118 We hypothesize that visualizing the relationship between air temperature,
119 air velocity, humidity and radiant temperatures through color gradients is a
120 step towards using geometric design to engage directly with heat transfer for
121 designing with comfort.
122 Victor and Aladar Olgyay pioneered the modern approach to designing
123 with climate [2], recognizing that comfort is dictated by air temperature,
124 humidity, and motion, as well as radiation. These basic modes are always
125 either enhanced or diminished by local climate and associated thermody-
126 namics, and interact with humans through clothing level, metabolic rate,
127 skin temperature, and skin wettedness. The modality of these interactions
128 was fully characterized by P.O. Fanger [19], whose comfort model, still com-
129 monly used today, characterized how human variables on the one hand and
130 ambient variables on the other interact to produce comfort or discomfort.
131 However, air temperature and humidity are still the two independent vari-
132 ables that are manipulated, with the other parameters always being set as
133 variables which controlled for, an unnecessary restriction of the comfort zone
134 that does not inherently optimize comfort design performance.
135 Applying a reductionist approach to thermal comfort yields 7 key vari-
136 ables acting within 3 interconnected modes of heat and mass transfer (radia-
137 tive, convective with associated evaporative transfers, neglecting conduction
138 for this analysis). The 7 variables are air temperature, Tair , mean radiant
139 temperature, TM RT , relative humidity, %RH, skin temperature, Tskin , air
140 velocity, vair , skin wettedness, w, and metabolic rate, M R. Clothing level
141 is also an important factor to consider, however this is a variable parameter
142 that can easily be added later to calibrate a specific model, similar to one’s
143 sitting versus standing position.
144 For this abstracted model, a human comfort comfort condition is defined
145 as equality between heat removed and metabolic rate. Metabolic rates are
146 well defined and independent of size, and are therefore a robust metric to
147 serve as the basis of this analysis [20]. Specifically 1.2 met (69.8 W/m2 ) is

5
148 the metabolic rate of an individual performing light office work such as typ-
149 ing, and 2 met (116.3 W/m2 ) is one’s metabolic rate when walking briskly.
150 These values of metabolic rate were chosen to serve as the boundary of the
151 office space comfort zone, or in other words this range describes the operating
152 range for a building system to remove heat between 69.8 and 116.3 W/m2
153 from an individual.
154

155 Detailed calculations of the human heat balance presented used in this
156 paper are presented in the supplementary materials, and will be briefly re-
157 viewed here.
158 Heat transfer between a building and an occupant can occur through
159 radiative and convective exchanges, as well as convection linked explicitly to
160 evaporative mass transfer, and conductive exchanges. Conduction from the
161 person to a surface they are in contact with was neglected for this study,
162 since this type of conduction is highly environment-dependent and therefore
163 difficult to quantify, rather than the other three modes which are always
164 present and empirically calculable. The following equation demonstrates the
165 objective function for comfort computation.
Qevap + Qconv + Qrad = M R (2)
166 Each heat transfer (Q) is proportional to a temperature difference be-
167 tween either the air temperature, Tair , or the mean radiant temperature ,
168 TM RT , and the occupant’s skin or clothing temperature, Tskin , with the ap-
169 propriate heat transfer coefficient. The same is true for mass transfer through
170 evaporation, except using the partial pressure difference between water on
171 the skin and water in the air instead of a temperature difference. Other im-
172 portant parameters are skin wettedness, w, which is a dimensionless number
173 ranging from 0.06 to 0.8 that describes the fraction of skin covered in sweat
174 [20]; air speed, vair , which changes the rate of heat removed through convec-
175 tion and evaporation; emissivity of the skin or clothing, ε, which can vary
176 the amount of heat transfered radiatively. The clothing insulation level, clo,
177 was not set as a free parameter for this analysis, but will be added in future
178 versions of the software. Either the mean radiant temperature or air speed
179 is left as a free parameter, and then the required value for this parameter
180 for comfort is calculated and plotted on a psychrometric axis. This is done
181 automatically by the solver using the following order of operations.
182 1. The user is prompted to select for a “Mean Radiant Temperature” or
183 “Air Speed” output.

6
184 2. If the user selects “Mean Radiant Temperature”, air speed is the re-
185 quired input.
186 • If the air speed value is less than 0.2 m s−1 , then a free convection
187 solver is used to compute the heat balance. Otherwise, a forced
188 convection solver is used.
189 3. If the user selects the “Air Speed” output, the difference between the
190 air temperature and the mean radiant temperature, T air − T M RT , in
◦
191 C is the required input. For example, an input value of 5 means that
192 the mean radiant temperature is 5 ◦ C below the air temperature for
193 each air temperature on the calculated psychrometric chart. This value
194 may be 0, meaning the two are equivalent.

195 2.1. Representation of mean radiant temperature (MRT)

196 Often in buildings, an occupant’s metabolic rate would be constant during
197 work. There are many transitional areas in a building for which this assump-
198 tion would not be true, but for office spaces that often cater to a singular task
199 it is possible to hold metabolic rate constant and solve for another variable.
200 For instance, at an office work metabolic rate of 1.2 met with minimal air
201 movement, the only free parameters are skin wettedness and mean radiant
202 temperature. So for each point on the psychrometric chart at a given skin
203 wettedness, one can solve for mean radiant temperature required to achieve
204 comfort for free convection.
205 It is in this way that the psychrometric comfort zone is “expanded”,
206 as with a radiant gradient overlay one can easily visualize how to achieve
207 thermal comfort at high humidity and air temperature, manipulating only
208 the surface temperatures. Figure 1 shows the expanded comfort zone with
209 the gradient that shows the required mean radiant temperature at each air
210 temperature and humidity required for a comfortable sensation with w =
211 0.06, M R = 1.2, and free convection. Electronic versions of this tool allow
212 for control of these free parameters with sliders to quickly evaluate changing
213 conditions1 . Geometries and spaces have been investigated in the literature
214 that are designed to minimize convection and instead treat thermal comfort
215 needs of occupants with radiation rather than convection [21, 22], offering
216 methods for how to navigate the unintuitive portions of the expanded comfort
217 zone, for instance high air temperature and humidity.

1
www.comfortch.art

7
 Additional variables

Saturated air (dewpoint) line

Required mean radiant temperature

An occupant will feel
comfortable if the
mean radiant temp.
matches

Iso-mean radiant temp.

lines
Relative humidity lines

Figure 1: Expanded and annotated psychrometric comfort zone - The background color
gradient represents the required mean radiant temperature to maintain comfort conditions,
at a given air temperature and humidity, holding metabolic rate constant at 1.2 met and
skin wettedness at 0.06 for free convection. All areas shaded with color can be considered
comfortable if the MRT is at the value that corresponds with the color legend. All graphics
in this publication can be interpreted in a similar way.

8
 Metabolic Rate: 2 (met); Skin Wettedness: 0.06; Free Convection 14.8
100% 5.4
90%
25 80% 70%
13.4
60%
Humidity Ratio (g water/kg dry air)

20 6.0 12.0
50%
6.6
10.7
15 40%
9.3
8.4
30%
10
9.6 2
10. .8

7.8
10 4

7.9
11.2.0

20%
1

9.0

7.2
5
6.6
10%
123. .2 8
1 13.
6

0 5.2
5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 MRT C
Air Temperature C

Figure 2: Expanded psychrometric comfort zone with elevated metabolic rate. The back-
ground color gradient represents the required mean radiant temperature at a given air
temperature and humidity, holding metabolic rate constant at 2 met and skin wettedness
at 0.06 for free convection.

218 Another version of the plot in Figure 2 is a recalculation of Figure 1, but

219 now with M R = 2 met. This is an elevated rate equivalent to 116 W/m2
220 of generation that needs to be shed to the environment. Likewise, the plot
221 in Figure 3 is a recalculation of Figure 1, but this time with M R = 1.2 met
222 and wet skin, at w = 0.40. Convection becomes the dominant mode of heat
223 transfer, even with free convection.

224 2.1.1. Interpretation guide - the whole chart as the comfort zone
225 These charts eliminate a rigid comfort zone, and instead treat the entire
226 area covered by the gradient as a potentially comfortable region. So long as
227 the required temperature or air speed condition shown by the color gradi-
228 ent is met by the system, the energy balance is favorable for comfort. For
229 example, air temperature, relative humidity, and mean radiant temperature
230 measurements would be taken, using Tair and %RH to position the point on

9
 Metabolic Rate: 1.2 (met); Skin Wettedness: 0.4; Free Convection 42.8
100% 21.0
90%
25 80% 70%
22.5 39.5
60%
Humidity Ratio (g water/kg dry air)

20 36.1
25.5 50%
32.7
15
24.0
28.5 40%
27.
0 29.3
31.5 30%
10 30.0
34.5 26.0
33.0 20%
37.5 36.0
5
39.0 22.6
10%
40.5
0 19.2
5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 MRT C
Air Temperature C

Figure 3: Expanded psychrometric comfort zone with elevated skin wettedness rate. The
background color gradient represents the required mean radiant temperature at a given air
temperature and humidity, holding metabolic rate constant at 1.2 met and skin wettedness
at 0.40 for free convection.

10
231 the x, y axes, and the color of the point is chosen from the measurement of
232 TM RT at the location of an occupant. A mismatch between the color of the
233 plotted point and the color of the gradient at the location of the point would
234 indicate an uncomfortable scenario. Because there are a number of internal
235 thermoregualtion mechanisms the human body has available, thermal com-
236 fort would be achieved within a TM RT range of the point rather than at only
237 the precisely specified temperature.
238 If the air velocity is known, the same set of plots can be drawn for a
239 fixed air velocity, addressing the remainder of an occupant’s thermal comfort
240 needs with a modulated radiant temperature. Since this is a convection dom-
241 inated regime, the mean radiant temperature required to produce comfort
242 at even high air temperatures is not particularly large, and there is nearly
243 a one-to-one relationship with air temperature and required mean radiant
244 temperature.
245 vair = 0.4 m/s is a high air velocity, and also is an air velocity that
246 would be hard to maintain and likely wouldn’t be guaranteed with a passive
247 natural ventilation system. A lower air velocity is more realistic. Figure 5 is
248 a redrawn version of Figure 4 but with a lower vair = 0.2 m/s.
249 One of the major advantages of using the standard psychrometric chart
250 as a design aid is superimposing local climate data on the axes to calculate
251 demand, assess the feasibility of evaporative cooling, and generally design
252 for the local climate [2]. The same type of assessment can be incorporated
253 in these expanded psychrometric charts, by examining lines of maximum
254 potential for different types of cooling for supplying chilled water to a hy-
255 dronic radiant system. Reverting to the base case from Figure 1, which for
256 free convection shows the TM RT required for comfort at M R = 1.2 met and
257 w =0.06, lines are added in Figure 6. These lines represent three conditions.
258 First, when the comfort condition is provided with TM RT = Tair , as indi-
259 cated by Line A at approximately 22 ◦ C. What is particularly interesting
260 about this case is that this TM RT = Tair is a commonly held assumption,
261 however this data shows that it is most comfortable, i.e. requiring the least
262 additional thermoregulation by one’s body, for a very narrow subset of air
263 temperatures between 21 and 22 ◦ C. While this is a common setpoint for
264 office buildings, this line makes it clear why small fluctuations in radiant
265 temperature such as next to an exterior wall or cold window, fluctuations in
266 air velocity, i.e. under a duct, or fluctuations in even air temperature itself
267 can cause discomfort. This is a powerful insight gained with the inclusion of
268 the mean radiant temperature gradient that is missing in a standard chart

11
 Metabolic Rate: 1.2 (met); Skin Wettedness: 0.06; vair: 0.4 m/s 36.3
100% 2
90%3.2
25 80% 70%
24. 24 34.1
8 0 .
60%
Humidity Ratio (g water/kg dry air)

20 26. 31.9
4 50%
28. 29.6
15 0
25. 40%
29. 6
6 27.4
31. 27.
2 2 30%
10
3 28.
3 2.8 8 25.1
34 3.6 30. 20%
.4 4
32.
5 0
22.9
10%
35
.2
0 20.6
5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 MRT C
Air Temperature C

Figure 4: Expanded psychrometric comfort zone with forced convention. The background
color gradient represents the required mean radiant temperature at a given air temperature
and humidity, holding metabolic rate constant at 1.2 met and skin wettedness at 0.06 for
forced convection at vair = 0.4 m/s.

12
 20.8
Metabolic Rate: 1.2 (met); Skin Wettedness: 0.06; vair: 0.2 m/s 27.2
100% 21.2
90%
70%
25 21.680%
26.2
22.0 60%
22.4
Humidity Ratio (g water/kg dry air)

20 25.1
50%
23.2
22.8 24.1
15 40%
24.0
23.6 23.0
24.8 30%
10
25.6 24.4
22.0
20%
25.2
5 26.4
20.9
10%
26.8
0 26.0 19.9
5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 MRT C
Air Temperature C

Figure 5: Expanded psychrometric comfort zone with forced convention at a low velocity.
The background color gradient represents the required mean radiant temperature at a
given air temperature and humidity, holding metabolic rate constant at 1.2 met and skin
wettedness at 0.06 for forced convection at vair = 0.2 m/s.

13
 Line C:
TMRT = Tdp

Line B:
TMRT = Twb
Line A:
TMRT = Tair

Figure 6: Redrawn version of Figure 1 (w =0.06, M R = 1.2 met, free convection), with
lines added to visualize potential cooling sources. Line A is Tair = TM RT , implying radiant
cooling is not required, or air source heat pumps would suffice. Line B represents TM RT =
Twb , implying the use of standard wet bulb evaporative cooling could effectively supply a
hydronic radiant cooling system for comfort in this range. Line C is TM RT = Tdp , which
shows the upper limit of M-Cycle evaporative cooling, but also the risk of condensation
with conventional radiant cooling panels. Reproduced with permission from [23].

269 without clear comfort trends.

270 Line B in Figure 6 represents comfort conditions when TM RT = Twb . Here,
271 the wet-bulb temperature, Twb , is the thermodynamic limit of temperature
272 depression with conventional evaporative cooling towers, and shows the low-
273 est achievable mean radiant temperature when using a system like indirect
274 evaporative cooling to produce chilled supply water for a hydronic radiant
275 system. The line itself is meant to represent the theoretical limit, but in
276 reality the mean radiant temperature would be lower since rarely the entire
277 room space and therefore entire view factor is activated with radiant panels.
278 Line C in Figure 6 represents comfort conditions when TM RT = Tdp , where
279 Tdp is the dew point. Such a line is relevant for avoiding condensation, as

14
280 points above this line would require the entire room to display a mean radi-
281 ant temperature below the dew point for comfort, or have a couple of panels
282 significantly below the dew point. There would likely be convective issues
283 associated with cooling the air rather than radiantly cooling the occupants,
284 or radiantly cooling opposite and adjacent surfaces below the dew point as
285 well [24, 21] However, new radiant technologies are currently under investiga-
286 tion to reduce the crossover between convection with a radiant surface while
287 simultaneously avoiding condensation in humid environments [25]. Likewise,
288 careful design of spaces with reflective surfaces opposite radiant panels can
289 mitigate condensation risk on non-activated surfaces.
290 Mean radiant temperature is defined as “the uniform temperature of an
291 imaginary enclosure in which the radiant heat transfer from the human body
292 is equal to the radiant heat transfer in the actual non-uniform enclosure” by
293 the ISO 7762 standard [26]. This means that mean radiant temperature itself
294 is used as an abstraction, removing view factor from radiant heat transfer cal-
295 culations in the built environment, since the mean radiant temperature refers
296 to an arbitrary space with a view factor of 1. Therefore, the lines in figure
297 6 are generated with a view factor of 1 and represent the best possible per-
298 formance scenario. In reality, colder temperatures (or warmer, for heating)
299 would be required as the view factor decreases from 1, and this calculation
300 can be implemented in future versions of the tool allowing designers to spec-
301 ify the view factor of a radiant system and the required supply temperature
302 calculated to produce the required mean radiant temperature. However, this
303 is still rooted in the mean radiant temperature abstraction, and does not
304 include any specifics of the human body or occupant orientation or spatial
305 location.
306 If radiant cooling below the dew point is deemed acceptable, line C also
307 indicates the theoretical limit of dew point evaporative cooling [27]. Anything
308 above this line would require further cooling to achieve radiant temperatures
309 below the dew point. Examples could be using a liquid desiccant to first
310 dehumidify air for evaporative cooling similar to the DEVap project [28],
311 to extract additional sensible cooling. Regeneration of the desiccant and
312 subsequent cooling would still need to be addressed.

313 2.2. Representation of air movement from free and forced convection
314 If assumptions are made about the mean radiant temperature in a space,
315 then the same methodology from the previous section can be applied for

15
 Metabolic Rate: 1.2 (met); Skin Wettedness: 0.06; Tair = TMRT
100%
90%
25 80% 70% 1.8

60% 1.6
Humidity Ratio (g water/kg dry air)

20 1.4
50%
1.2
15 40% 1.1

30% 0.9
10
0.7
20%
5 0.5
10% 0.3
0 0.1
5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 m/s
Air Temperature C

Figure 7: Expanded psychrometric comfort zone with ventilation. The background color
gradient represents the required air velocity and humidity, holding metabolic rate constant
at 1.2 met and skin wettedness at 0.06 for free convection. Additionally, it is assumed
that TM RT = Tair . Reproduced from [23].

316 calculating the air velocity required for achieving comfort if that is a tun-
317 able parameter. Such analysis could be useful for design of natural ventila-
318 tion systems without radiant systems. Operating under the assumption that
319 TM RT = Tair , one can again set metabolic rate and skin wettedness constant
320 and solve for the remaining parameter at each air temperature and relative
321 humidity, air velocity.
322 Personal ventilation systems are an exciting area of research [29] since
323 fan technology now draws very little energy. Focusing on the personal, local
324 environment is another strategy for saving energy as well, as making people
325 comfortable is ultimately the goal of conditioning, rather than making build-
326 ings comfortable as a proxy for human thermal comfort. Because convection
327 grows nonlinearly as a function of air velocity witnessed in the convective heat
328 transfer coefficient, convection can provide comfort conditions even in warm

16
329 environments. Knowledge of the required air velocity for thermal comfort
330 is vital to these models, and these visualizations show not only required air
331 velocities for each temperature and humidity, but also reflect the nonlinear
332 trend.
333 Figure 7 shows a gradient solving for required air velocity when the mean
334 radiant temperature is set equal to the air temperature. The metabolic rate
335 in this plot is 1.2 met with a skin wettedness of 0.06. Figure 7 shows rel-
336 atively low air speeds can provide comfort with outdoor air, however the
337 difficulty is ensuring the air is always supplied at the same temperature and
338 velocity. As alluded to in de Dear et al. [30], there is a neurophysiological
339 basis for feeling more uncomfortable when comfort conditions suddenly shift
340 to uncomfortable conditions, even if momentary. Especially with air veloc-
341 ity and temperature, small fluctuations can lead to a feeling of discomfort
342 because of the strong nonlinearity of forced convection.
343 Figure 8 shows the required wind velocity for an elevated metabolic rate
344 of 2 met but same skin wettedness of 0.06 and TM RT = Tair assumption as
345 in Figure 7. Again, many intuitively uncomfortable conditions could now be
346 considered comfortable with the correct air velocity.
347 In both figures, a lower bound of vair = 0.1 m/s and an upper bound of 2
348 m/s were chosen, as 0.1 m/s is typically the onset of forced convection, and
349 above 2 m/s, air velocities are noticeably uncomfortable.

350 2.3. Representation of transient behavior of occupants

351 A convenient and often accurate assumption for this research is the brack-
352 eting of metabolic rates between 1.2 and 2 mets representing a light office
353 work and a brisk walk, respectively. These conditions are also typically
354 linked to certain skin wettedness conditions, for instance it is unlikely that
355 for a comfortable individual performing light office work that skin wetted-
356 ness would be above 0.06. However, there are many other areas in buildings
357 allowing to one to draw the same conclusions for transient, non-steady-state
358 conditions.
359 For example, in the tropics, in Singapore, it is typical to take public
360 transportation to work, often requiring brisk walks to bus stops or energy
361 intensive walks up staircases. In these scenarios, there is additional heat that
362 must be shed, but additional evaporation able to perform the task.
363 Figure 9 shows the required TM RT for achieving thermal comfort for free
364 convection at 2.3 met. The radiant temperatures are very low, ranging below
365 the freezing point of water at the most extreme condition. This is clearly not

17
 Metabolic Rate: 2 (met); Skin Wettedness: 0.06; Tair = TMRT
100%
90%
25 80% 70% 1.8

60% 1.6
Humidity Ratio (g water/kg dry air)

20 1.4
50%
1.2
15 40% 1.1

30% 0.9
10
0.7
20%
5 0.5
10% 0.3
0 0.1
5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 m/s
Air Temperature C

Figure 8: Expanded psychrometric comfort zone with ventilation at an elevated metabolic

rate. The background color gradient represents the required air velocity and humidity,
holding metabolic rate constant at 2 met and skin wettedness at 0.06 for free convection.
Additionally, it is assumed that TM RT = Tair . Reproduced from [23].

18
 2.5
Metabolic Rate: 2.3 (met); Skin Wettedness: 0.6; Free Convection 38.0
100% 5.
90%0
25 80% 70%
7.5 32.7
60%
Humidity Ratio (g water/kg dry air)

20 27.4
12.5 50%
22.1
15
10.0

17.5 40%
15.
0 16.8
22.5 20.0 30%
10
25.0
27.5 11.4
20%
5
32.5 30.0 6.1
10%
35.0
0 0.8
5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 MRT C
Air Temperature C

Figure 9: Expanded psychrometric comfort zone solving for the required TM RT at 2.3 met
and a skin wettedness of 0.6, that might be indicative the transition from a bike ride to
entering a building.

19
 Metabolic Rate: 2.3 (met); Skin Wettedness: 0.6; Tair = TMRT
100%
90%
25 80% 70% 1.8

60% 1.6
Humidity Ratio (g water/kg dry air)

20 1.4
50%
1.2
15 40% 1.1

30% 0.9
10
0.7
20%
5 0.5
10% 0.3
0 0.1
5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 m/s
Air Temperature C

Figure 10: Expanded psychrometric comfort zone solving for the required vair at 2.3 met
and a skin wettedness of 0.6, that might be indicative the transition from a bike ride to
entering a building.

366 a standard building scenario, yet provides insight into the trends for required
367 radiant temperatures.
368 Figure 10 shows how well convection is able to treat the same conditions
369 of 2.3 met and a skin wettedness of 0.6. Because the large partial pressure
370 difference between skin with such a high value for w is high, a significant
371 portion of the heat generated at 2.3 met can be shed to the air with even
372 modest air velocities. Therefore, forced convection is a better method for
373 cooling in such a transitional space rather than radiant cooling.
374 In developing the model for the expanded psychrometric framework for
375 transient scenarios, several areas were identified in which the framework can
376 demonstrate counter-intuitive phenomena. A prime example occurs for non-
377 steady-state cooling models, where an individual with w > 0.06, or in other
378 words an individual with a certain amount of sweat on their skin attempting
379 to shed heat to the environment will experience competing effects of radiant

20
 Metabolic Rate: 1.2 (met); Skin Wettedness (complex): 0.4; Free Convection 25.9
100%
90%
25 80% 70%
24.0
60%
Humidity Ratio (g water/kg dry air)

20 22.0
19 50%
.0
20.1
15

17.0
20 40%
.0
18.2
30%
21

10
.0
22.

16.3
0

20%
23.
0

5 .0 .0
18 16 .0 14.4
15 10%
24

0 12.5
.0

5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 MRT C
Air Temperature C

Figure 11: Expanded complex psychrometric comfort zone solving for the required TM RT
at 1.2 met and a skin wettedness of 0.4. Drier air requires a cooler TM RT due to the
competing effects of radiant and evaporative cooling.

380 and evaporative cooling. Because water is at best 20% transparent in the
381 domain that humans radiate, λpeak = 9.5µm. Therefore water on the skin
382 would be radiantly exchanging with a radiant cooling system at the wet bulb
383 temperature, rather than the skin temperature. This can be modeled as
384 effective surface area through which radiative heat transfer occurs at Tskin (1−
385 w) and skin = 0.95. While water is also highly emissive, water = 0.95,
386 the depressed temperature at the surface of the sweat beads approaching
387 Twb (w) will cause less radiative heat transfer to a radiantly cooled surface.
388 Theoretically, in such environments radiative cooling is less effective, and
389 there may exist interesting practical embodiments. This is modeled in figure
390 11, where an individual with a metabolic rate of 1.2 met and skin wettedness
391 of 0.4 is modeled for free convection heat and evaporative losses, solving for
392 the required mean radiant temperature for comfort.
393 Figure 11 demonstrates that as water on the surface of the skin gets

21
394 cooler, radiant cooling to chilled surfaces is less effective, since the depressed
395 surface temperature of the water towards the Twb reduces the temperature
396 difference driving radiant cooling. Such a competing effect would exist for
397 transient conditions, but helps inform where radiant systems could poten-
398 tially be least effective. Figure 11 includes a gradient over the range where
399 the approximation for Twb is best, above 3%RH [31]. This treatment of
400 exceptional conditions must be validated experimentally, but demonstrates
401 the robustness and internal consistency of this methodology, with tradeoffs
402 emerging from the fundamentals-driven physics engine.

403 3. Discussion
404 Many of the new regions defined as comfortable here are somewhat ex-
405 treme and counterintuitive, for example claiming that an environment with
406 an air temperature of 32 ◦ C and relative humidity of 70% could be comfort-
407 able with no air motion. Based on figure 1, comfort could be achieved with a
408 mean radiant temperature of 19.2 ◦ C. The inverse case of a high mean radi-
409 ant temperature with a low air temperature is intuitive, perhaps a campfire
410 at night or a radiant heater on an autumn night at an outdoor restaurant.
411 Yet no case of this type of mean radiant temperature to air temperature
412 separation exist in the ASHRAE thermal comfort database II [32]. However,
413 this does not mean that the conditions could not be designed with creative
414 thermal systems [12, 25]. Particularly with recent advances on materials for
415 radiant cooling [33, 34], there is a renewed need to understand how occupants
416 physically interact with comfort systems to realize energy savings with air
417 temperature setbacks [35].
418 Validating these regions can be conducted in climate chambers with stan-
419 dard instrumentation, to gain insight to whether these proposed domains are
420 perceived as comfortable by occupants. However, the regions proposed by
421 this paper are generally aligned with an adaptive comfort window. Take
422 the example where operative temperature is, for simplicity, is calculated us-
423 ing equation 3 from ISO 7726 [26]. Also assume that a natural ventilation
424 system is in place with no air heating or cooling system, such that the air
425 temperature in a building is equivalent to the air temperature outside.
√
tr + (ta × 10vair )
to = √ (3)
1 + 10vair

22
 35.0 Adaptive Comfort, 1.0 - 1.3 met, vair = 0.3m s 1 40 Expanded Comfort, 1.0 - 1.3 met, vair = 0.3m s 1
80% Acceptability 80% Acceptability
32.5 90% Acceptability 90% Acceptability

Mean Radiant Temperature C

Expanded Comfort 35 Expanded Comfort
Operative Temperature C

30.0
27.5 30
25.0
22.5 25

20.0
20
17.5
15.0 15
10 15 20 25 30 35 10 15 20 25 30 35
Air Temperature C Air Temperature C

Figure 12: (a - left): The adaptive comfort zone with a derived expanded comfort zone
from a radiant system added. (b - right): The adaptive comfort zone transformed into a
mean radiant temperature y-axis, appended with the same expanded comfort range after
transformation.

426 Using the adaptive comfort 80 and 90% acceptability zones for 0.3 m s−1
427 air speed shown in figure 12a, for each operative temperature, to , and air
428 temperature, ta , equation 3 can be used to transform the y-axis of figure
429 12 from Operative Temperature to Mean Radiant Temperature, tr , shown in
430 figure 12. In parallel, the model presented in this paper was run for metabolic
431 rates of 1.0 to 1.3 met for a fixed skin wettedness of 0.06 and an air speed
432 of 0.3 m s−1 . The range of calculated mean radiant temperature required
433 for comfort between 10 and 90 %RH was used as an arbitrary boundary
434 condition. The resulting mean radiant temperature ranges were appended to
435 figure 12b, and then converted to operative temperature ranges and appended
436 to figure 12a.
437 There is good agreement between the two comfort zones, however the
438 standard adaptive comfort criteria are consistently wider than the expanded
439 comfort framework. This is likely due to the constant skin wettedness built
440 in to the expanded comfort model. Similarly, the heat removal required for
441 comfort when handled entirely by a radiant system necessarily narrows the
442 range of acceptible temperatures as the air temperature parameter becomes
443 fixed. Therefore, a primary contribution of this framework is a visualization
444 of the required range of radiant setpoints required to achieve the adaptive
445 comfort criteria with a radiant system using outdoor air with no sensible
446 gains.
447 Moreover, the high degree of overlap between the adaptive comfort frame-

23
448 work and this expanded comfort tool implies that while using a radiant
449 system alone to achieve comfort conditions at high air temperatures may
450 be novel, the resulting operative temperature that produces comfort is not
451 contrary to existing standards. Therein lies the true novelty of the tool,
452 separating comfort contributions to modes of heat transfer to provide design
453 flexibility.

454 4. Conclusion
455 This paper builds on the extensive development of comfort studies that
456 paralleled the commercialization of air conditioning technology. This devel-
457 opment led to a rigid comfort zone, defined by the limits of an air-based
458 approach to thermal comfort, which focuses on management of only temper-
459 ature and humidity . The major contribution of this paper is the expansion
460 of the thermal comfort zone, illustrated on a psychrometric chart, allow-
461 ing for dynamic manipulation and contributions from vair and TM RT . An
462 open-source code base was produced for climate designers to use establish
463 more flexible design of operating conditions controls and setpoints. Directly
464 considering TM RT can enable new ways to couple form and thermal perfor-
465 mance. This code is available in an open-source repository for understanding
466 dynamic relationships between all comfort variables.

467 4.1. Reproducibility

468 The color-shading demonstration graphics found in this paper are pro-
469 vided in a Github repository2 and as an online tool3 . This repository allows
470 other researchers to replicate these graphics using their own data to take
471 advantage of the color-shading features outlined in this paper.

472 4.2. Future work

473 Many regions of the expanded psychrometric comfort zone have not been
474 experimentally validated, since it seems counter-intuitive that comfort can
475 be achieved when air temperature is above 30 ◦ C and a heat balance model
476 is invoked. New experiments and physiological validation techniques can
477 be used to help validate the model, including some of the skin temperature
478 assumptions in this paper. Additional visualisation techniques could show

2
https://github.com/buds-lab/psychrometric-chart-makeover
3
www.comfortch.art

24
479 acceptable windows, rather than a pure solution to allow for even larger
480 design windows. The mean radiant calculations presented herein still rely on
481 an abstracted mean radiant temperature. Future versions of the tool could
482 use a better human body representation or spatial description.

483 5. Acknowledgement(s)
484 This work would not be possible without Willis Carrier, the Olgyay broth-
485 ers, ASHRAE and the millions of engineers who have made the psychrometric
486 chart ubiquitous. The authors would like to acknowledge Axel Kilian for his
487 guidance during the model development.

488 6. References
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609 [37] P. Iampietro, Use of skin temperature to predict tolerance to thermal

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614 507.

615 Appendix A. Calculation of the Human Body Heat Balance

616 As described in this paper, color is a convenient parameter to help illus-
617 trate the dynamic nature of comfort variables, particularly when used as a
618 tool to demonstrate the tradeoff between the change in one comfort variable
619 and the required compensation by another. Adding a degree of freedom to
620 the thermal performance and design of spaces imparts a similar degree of
621 freedom to spatial and programmatic design by opening the door to the sep-
622 aration of comfort and ventilation air. Visualizing the relationship between
623 air temperature, air velocity, humidity and radiant temperatures through
624 color gradients is a step towards formal engagement with heat transfer for
625 designing with comfort.
626 Victor and Aladar Olgyay pioneered the modern approach to designing
627 with climate [2], recognizing that comfort is dictated by air temperature,
628 humidity, and motion, as well as radiation. These basic modes are always
629 either enhanced or diminished by local climate and associated thermody-
630 namics, and interact with humans through clothing level, metabolic rate,
631 skin temperature, and skin wettedness. The modality of these interactions
632 was fully characterized by P.O. Fanger [19], whose comfort model, still in
633 existence today, characterized how human variables on the one hand and
634 ambient variables on the other interact to produce comfort or discomfort.
635 However, air temperature and humidity are still the two independent vari-
636 ables that are manipulated, with the other parameters always being set as
637 variables which controlled for, an unnecessary restriction of the comfort zone
638 that does not inherently optimize comfort design performance.

29
639 Applying a reductionist approach to thermal comfort yields seven key
640 variables acting within three interconnected modes of heat and mass transfer
641 (radiative, convective with associated evaporative transfers, neglecting con-
642 duction for this analysis). The 7 variables are air temperature, Tair , mean ra-
643 diant temperature, TM RT , relative humidity, %RH, skin temperature, Tskin ,
644 air velocity, vair , skin wettedness, w, and metabolic rate, M R. Clothing level
645 is also an important factor to consider, however this is a variable parameter
646 that can easily be added later to calibrate a specific model, similar to one’s
647 sitting versus standing position.
648 For this abstracted model, a human comfort comfort condition is defined
649 as equality between heat removed and metabolic rate. Metabolic rates are
650 well defined and independent of size, and are therefore a robust metric to
651 serve as the basis of this analysis [20]. Specifically 1.2 met (69.8 W/m2 ) is the
652 metabolic rate of an individual performing light office work such as typing,
653 and 2 met (116.3 W/m2 ) is one’s metabolic rate when walking briskly. These
654 values of metabolic rate were chosen to serve as the boundary of the office
655 space comfort zone, or in other words this range describes the operating range
656 for a building system to remove heat between 69.8 and 116.3 W/m2 from an
657 individual.
658 Heat transfer between a building and an occupant can occur through ra-
659 diative and convective exchanges, as well as convection linked explicitly to
660 evaporative mass transfer, and conductive exchanges. Conduction was ne-
661 glected for this study, since conduction tends to be environment-dependent
662 and therefore difficult to quantify, rather than the other three modes which
663 are always present and empirically calculable. The following equation demon-
664 strates the objective function for analysis.

Qevap + Qconv + Qrad = M R (A.1)

665 Each Q is proportional to a temperature difference and heat transfer co-

666 efficient, and a method for solving for the free parameters is conducted to
667 calculate the required condition of the free variable, TM RT , vair , etc., for
668 comfort. In equation A.1, heat transfer (Q) in W m−2 is presented with
669 subscripts evap, conv, and rad for the heat transfer due to evaporation, con-
670 vection, and conduction, respectively. Parameterizing this model in equation
671 set A.2 reveals interconnectedness between the relevant modes of heat trans-

30
672 fer.
Qevap = f (w, %RH, Tskin , vair ); Qconv = f (vair , Tair , Tskin ); Qrad = f (TM RT , Tskin )
(A.2)
673 Each mode is coupled by a dependence on skin temperature, and evaporative
674 and convective modes have a dependence on vair .
675 In models presented by Arens and deDear [20, 36], the three modes
676 are simply portrayed as potential-driven transfer mechanisms as depicted
677 in equation sets A.3 through A.5. Equation set A.3 shows Qconv divided
678 into a two regimes, forced and free convection. Free convection occurs for
679 vair ≤ 0.1 m/s and forced convection occurs for vair > 0.1 m/s. For this
680 study, free convection assumes an individual is sitting, and forced convection
681 assumes an individual is standing (walking) thereby changing the form of hc ,
682 the convective heat transfer coefficient [20].
Qconv = hc (Tskin − Tair ); hc,f ree = 0.78(Tskin − Tair )0.56 ; hc,f orced = 10.4vair
0.56

(A.3)
683 Equation set A.4 shows the dependence of evaporatively generated heat
684 transfer on convective heat transfer as shown in the he , evaporative heat
685 transfer, coefficient, in addition to partial pressure differences, P . In this
686 model, Pskin,sat is the partial pressure of water at the skin’s surface and
687 therefore at Tskin , and Pair is the partial pressure of water in the air at
688 Tair . For an individual that is not sweating but transporting moisture at a
689 background rate, it is assumed that w = 0.06. At the onset of sweating, this
690 number increases to a maximum practical threshold of 0.80 [20].

Qevap = w ∗ he (Pskin,sat − Pair ); he = 16.5hc (A.4)

691 Equation set A.5 is an empirical simplification of radiant heat transfer
692 that is possible due to relatively small temperature differences at building
AR
693 scales. The ratio A D
represents the effective area through which radiative
694 heat transfer can occur, chosen for a seated, clothed occupant.
AR Tskin + TM RT 3 AR
Qrad = hr (Tskin − TM RT ); hr = 4σ [273.15 + ]; = 0.70
AD 2 AD
(A.5)
695 The challenge is presenting these empirical models as a comprehensive,
696 holistic, and intuitive model, rather than a disparate set of equations.
697 Additionally, a significant amount of research has been conducted mea-
698 suring skin temperature as a function of air temperature [37], which is a

31
 699 useful equation that allows reducing parameters among the modes of heat
700 transfer. While there is a nonuniform relaxation period during which the skin
701 temperature approaches the equilibrium value, a simple linear expression can
702 be defined to more accurately model Tskin as a function of Tair as follows in
703 equation A.6, which fits data with R2 = 0.99.

Tskin = 0.3182Tair + 22.406 (A.6)

704 Using these fundamental relationships, a model was developed using Python
705 scripting that allowed for the fundamental parameters to be varied and the
706 resulting topology change plotted. Similar to the models created by Shukuya
707 [38] and Fanger [19], these topologies were created with the intent of defining
708 a comfort zone and performing a generalized system optimization. How-
709 ever unlike other work in the field, the intended goal of this analysis is to
710 provide the user with an intuitive picture of her surroundings, adding more
711 complexity than just air temperature and relative humidity.

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