A modified method of evaluating the impact of air humidity on human acceptable air temperatures in hot-humid environments

This research aims to investigate human thermal responses to air humidity in warm and hot environments and to evaluate the effect of humidity on human thermal comfort. 20 subjects were involved in 12 exposure experiments in a well-controlled climate chamber at three relative humidity levels (40%, 60%, 80%) and four air temperature levels (26 °C, 28 °C, 30 °C, 32 °C) with little indoor airflow. The physical environmental and physiological parameters, as well as subjective questionnaires, were collected simultaneously with the on-going experiments. The results show that in hot environments, particularly when the air temperature exceeds 30 °C, the relative humidity has a significant effect on human thermal responses both physiologically and subjectively. The Standard Effective Temperature (SET) is biased when evaluating human thermal comfort in hot-humid environments without considering human thermal adaptation to humidity. Hence, a humidity correction coefficient eRH is proposed to modify the deviation of the SET under different relative humidity levels, and to quantify the effect of humidity on human acceptable air temperatures. The modified acceptable temperature-humidity zone has been obtained using the modified method.