Study on winter thermal comfort of membrane structure gymnasium in severe cold region of China
Yefei Bai, Lintao Zhao, Ru’ning Tang, Xiaolong Kang
Abstract
Recently, membrane structures have been increasingly used in gymnasiums. However, an uneven distribution of indoor thermal environment exists in membrane-structure gymnasiums, resulting in poor thermal comfort for indoor personnel. Therefore, the indoor thermal environment of a membrane-structure gymnasium was assessed and some improvement measures are proposed herein. The adopted research method mainly comprised a combination of field tests and questionnaires, which aimed at collecting the indoor and outdoor environment parameters and the subjective vote values of different people to establish a thermal comfort model. The results of the thermal comfort model analysis showed that among the applicable population in the membrane-structure gymnasium, the sports group exhibited the highest thermal comfort, followed by the audience group, and the thermal comfort of post-exercise group was relatively poor. To ensure thermal comfort for all three studied groups, the proposed operative temperature range of the gym should be approximately between 10.07–13.34 °C. This study provides a reference for the application and operation of the membrane structures on sports buildings.