Avaliação pelo usuário da câmara bioclimática de baixo custo: foco em aspectos de conforto ambiental

Abstract

Expanding the knowledge of existing studies in relation to the Cost-effective Bioclimatic Chamber (CBBC), this research seeks to elaborate a comprehensive diagnosis of positive and negative aspects in the use of the CBBC. The research focus is on environmental comfort and the evaluation of the relationship between thermal and luminous aspects, inclusive of human behavior, in two distinctly characterized climatic periods. In operation since February 2018, the CBBC installed in Curitiba – PR is the first Brazilian climate chamber dedicated to environmental comfort studies. With semicontrolled features, the chamber consists of two modules configured similarly to the space of a small office, constructed over rotating support structures. This allows for the testing of the space under the effect of different climatic settings on 263 participants who completed two questionnaires. The first, a psychological test, sought to assess differences in responsiveness related to environmental conditions. The second, a practical evaluation, sought to raise subjective aspects perceived by the volunteers in relation to the different chamber settings to which they were presented. From this analysis, it was possible to observe how the presented comfort variables as well as the result of the applied psychological test influenced the participant’s perception of the chamber environment. The outcomes achieved demonstrate that the directly obtained PMV results overestimate the thermal perception data reported by the studied group. Regarding the light perception, there is a greater heterogeneity of responses when the analysis was performed under intermediate conditions of cloudiness (FEW, SCT and BKN), in any of the module configurations. The application of the psychological test G- 38 demonstrated better results in the summer campaign. Finally, the statistical comparison of the data through the Analysis of Variance validated significant differences in the user’s perception in the different proposed scenarios, highlighting the complexity and interdisciplinarity of the subject. The study also seeks to provide the Working Group (GT-CBBC) with results that could positively influence the operation of the CBBC.