Advancing thermal comfort research: evaluating indices for naturally ventilated residential buildings in diverse climatic zones: A data driven approach

Thermal comfort research has taken a turn in the last decade with more focus on comfort models applicable to different climatic zones. Working home conditions due to pandemics added to it and started giving it a different direction altogether. Liveability and thermal comfort of houses of all income classes have hogged attention. There are several studies carried out in thermal comfort in naturally ventilated residential buildings specific to different regions and climatic conditions. Most of these thermal comfort studies are carried out in last two decades and used different thermal comfort indices to analyse the adaptiveness and other thermal comfort parameters of the occupants. This paper is an attempt towards that direction by reviewing the models or indices used for the evaluation of indoor thermal comfort specific to a climatic zone for naturally ventilated residential buildings and an evaluation of different indices are carried out based on the ASHRAE DB-RP884 specific to different climatic zone on the preview of the comfort indices used. The result of this study shows that the researchers preferred certain indices for each of the climatic zones. Based on the evaluation, a recommendation is made on the indices which gives the highest thermal comfort estimation of the occupants specific to the climatic zone. This result can guide future researchers on the selection of the indices specific to a climatic zone.