Evaluating the effect of non-uniform summer wearing on local thermal sensation of passengers in a bus under two common ventilation systems

Providing thermal comfort conditions for vehicle occupants, especially public transport is a complicated issue due to the density of population and non-uniformity in individual and environmental conditions. So, an important evidence of individual non-uniformity is the variety in passengers' wearing; e.g. in many cases, some passengers have a higher level of clothing and some have less. In this study, we tried to evaluate the impact of non-uniformity in bus passengers' wearing on the local and overall thermal sensation under mixing and displacement ventilation systems. Based on the results, displacement ventilation system has shown a better performance in providing uniform conditions. In the mixing ventilation, the maximum thermal sensation vote is about 1.1, however it is about 0.4 under the displacement ventilation system. As well, the results show that using short sleeves instead of long ones can decrease about 2.5°C in the hands skin temperature and also about 0.1 and 0.4 in overall thermal sensation index, respectively under displacement and mixing ventilation systems. This also shows that the sensitivity level of short sleeves subjects is higher in the mixing ventilation system than in the displacement ventilation system.