A Study on Thermal and Acoustic comfort in an Institutional Building

The indoor environment in educational buildings like schools and colleges need to provide a healthy atmosphere to encourage the students towards learning and improve their productivity. In educational buildings, both thermal and acoustical comfort depend on the site and there exists a relationship among buildings, open spaces, building design with external factors and also its interior design. The aim of the current paper is to study the thermal and acoustic principles in detail and analyze the factors that impact the occupant’s health and comfort by field study method in a school building. Both thermal and acoustical factors that influence the occupants’ health and comfort are highlighted in this study and prioritized for necessary enhancements in the school building. A central board school building was identified for the study and the paper discusses about the site features and building design. For this study, the field data was recorded during 2019. Based on the data collected, analysis was conducted on the influencing factors on thermal and acoustical comfort of the school building. The methodology of the work includes an understanding about the influencing factors of thermal and acoustical comfort with documentation of the school building design, field study measurements in the identified school building and analysing the building design with field measurements on thermal and acoustical factors in school building. The field study measurements were recorded using a Thermo-anemometer and a data logger to collect the data on temperature, humidity and wind speed. Subjective analysis was conducted about comfort and noise level among the students aged between 9 and 16 using a questionnaire survey. The opportunities for improving the occupants’ well being and comfort include various measures that are listed herewith; appropriate shading of the windows that can reduce the heat transfer into the building; well-channelized air movement into the indoor environment to improve the occupants’ comfort; and replacing the paved surfaces with grasscrete or aligning the axis path with shrubs to reduce the radiation towards the indoor surfaces. On the other hand, the selection of the appropriate building materials for wall construction provides an oppurtunity to increase the indoor environmental quality. It can also act as insulation to reduce the noise level in the classrooms.