Estimating summer wind driven natural ventilation potential for indoor thermal comfort

Occupants of houses in warm humid tropical climates often rely on natural ventilation from wind for indoor thermal comfort during summer. Natural ventilation potential from wind is compared with the air flow required to restore indoor thermal comfort using Macfarlane's method and simultaneous temperature, humidity and wind data for January 1980. The study indicates that indoor thermal comfort can be achieved from natural ventilation more often during daylight hours, 103 out of 124 occasions, when wind speeds are higher and relative humidity is lower than during night time, 79 out of 124 occasions when relative humidity rises and calms in wind are more frequent. Given the increasing difficulty in obtaining climatic data at reasonable cost, this estimate of indoor thermal comfort is compared to an estimate of indoor thermal comfort at 3 PM based on readily available, but less detailed, mean monthly data. The latter is suggested to be adequate for preliminary stages of building design. Copyright (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.