Thermal sensation of children and its predictive evaluation method in Indonesia’s dry season

There is a discrepancy between children’s thermal sensation in hot-humid climates near the equator and conventional thermal comfort indexes, such as the predicted mean vote (PMV). The latter is known to overestimate children’s thermal sensation. Therefore, it is necessary to develop evaluation methods that reflect children’s subjective thermal sensation vote (TSV). With the above background, this study conducted thermal environment measurements over a period of about one and a half years, beginning in July 2023, Indonesia, a tropical developing country. The measurements were carried out at public elementary schools in Java and Sumatra. In addition, longitudinal questionnaires on children’s thermal sensations during learning activities were taken in August and September of both 2023 and 2024. These were used to analyze trends in perceived thermal comfort. This paper presents the results of the regression analysis of the dry season survey from these periods. It reveals that there is a simple relationship between the average thermal sensation of Indonesian children and PMV when adjusted for physiological adaptation through metabolic rate. These results suggest that a simple modification of PMV considered physiological adaptations has the possibility to predict their thermal sensation easily in tropical regions.