Indoor Thermal Comfort: A Study at Malaysian Automotive Industry

The objective of this study is to determine the thermal comfort among worker at Malaysian automotive industry. One automotive parts assembly factory had been chosen as a subject for the study. The human subjects for the study constitute operators at tire receiving section of the factory. The environment examined was the relative humidity (%), WBGT (C-0), Air temperature () and Radiant Temperature () of the surrounding workstation area. The environmental factors were measured using Babuc apparatus, which is capable to measure simultaneously those mentioned environmental factors. The time series data of fluctuating level of factors were plotted to identify the significant changes of factors. Then thermal comfort of the workers were assessed by using ASHRAE Thermal sensation scale by using Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) which has been proposed earlier by Fanger (1970). Further Predicted percentage dissatisfied (PPD) is used to estimate the thermal comfort satisfaction of the occupant. Finally the PPD versus PMV were plotted to present the thermal comfort scenario of workers involved in related workstation. The study reveals that 54.03 % of the workers population at the workstation are likely to be satisfied with thermal comfort at this station.