The primary purpose of the current research was to implement a numerical model to investigate the interactions between the energy consumption in Heating, Ventilating, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems and occupants’ thermal comfort in commercial buildings. A numerical model was developed to perform a thermal analysis of a single zone and simultaneously investigate its occupants’ thermal sensations as a non-linear function of the thermal environmental (i.e. temperature, thermal radiation, humidity, and air speed) and personal factors (i.e. activity and clothing). The zone thermal analyses and thermal comfort calculations were carried out by applying the heat balance method and current thermal comfort standard (ASHRAE STANDARD 55-2004) respectively. The model was then validated and applied on a single generic zone, representing the perimeter office spaces of the Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability (CIRS), to investigate the impacts of variation in occupants’ behaviors, building’s envelope, HVAC system, and climate on both energy consumption and thermal comfort. Regarding the large number of parameters involved, the initial summer and winter screening analyses were carried out to determine the measures that their impacts on the energy and/or thermal comfort were most significant. These analyses showed that, without any incremental cost, the energy consumption in both new and existing buildings may significantly be reduced with a broader range of setpoints, adaptive clothing for the occupants, and higher air exchange rate over the cooling season. The effects of these measures as well as their combination on the zone thermal performance were then studied in more detail with the whole year analyses. These analyses suggest that with the modest increase in the averaged occupants’ thermal dissatisfaction, the combination scenario can notably reduce the total annual energy consumption of the baseline zone. Considering the global warming and the life of a building, the impacts of climate change on the whole year modeling results were also investigated for the year 2050. According to these analyses, global warming reduced the energy consumption for both the baseline and combination scenario, thanks to the moderate and cold climate of Vancouver. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Mechanical Engineering, Department of / Graduate

Este trabalho tem como foco principal apresentar os resultados e as contribuições da pesquisa experimental comparativa de subcoberturas em sistemas de cobertura. Para tal fim foram utilizados quatro protótipos localizados no canteiro experimental do CRHEA - EESC em São Carlos, São Paulo. Os protótipos foram construídos da mesma forma e com os mesmos materiais: tijolo comum, laje cerâmica recapeada com concreto; cobertos com telhas de fibrocimento e submetidos às mesmas excitações de clima ao ar livre. A análise foi feita aplicando um curto intervalo de clima, com respaldo teórico da climatologia dinâmica. Um dos protótipos serviu como testemunho e não recebeu a instalação de nenhuma subcobertura. Os outros três receberam cada um, respectivamente, subcobertura de foil (isolante por reflexão, ou barreira de radiação), lã de rocha (isolante convencional, condutividade térmica k) e de caixas cartonadas Tetra Pak, um resíduo, como isolante por reflexão e câmara de ar, já que foram utilizadas fechadas e uma ao lado da outra. Foram monitoradas as temperaturas superficiais da telha e da laje e, das temperaturas de bulbo seco no ático e na parte interna dos protótipos a 1,10 m de altura. As medidas de aquisições de dados foram feitas através de CR10X Campbell Scientific automático com medições em 30 segundos, armazenados e totalizados em 30 minutos, o que resultou em valores de clima ao livre e em recinto fechado muito precisos. / Thermal comfort achievement can be done by using thermal reflexive barriers, meaning energy savings and avoiding health problems of air conditioning. It can also be done by using building construction waste materials as Tetra Pak boxes, a low cost reflexive insulation, and applying an industrial \"foil\" which the same effect on reducing indoor air temperatures. In the same way traditional thermal insulation materials were used on this research as the mineral wool (conventional insulation material, thermal conductivity - k values). The analysis was made applying short intervals of climate such as recommended by the dynamic climatic approach. The use of foil insulation can be justified because of its behavior as a reflective barrier and because it has a lot of acceptation; mineral wool (mineral source with low k insulation values) for being a traditional kind of thermal insulation and the Tetra Pak box, because it is a reflective insulation and also because of its waste recycle usage characteristic. The research shows the insulation thermal efficiency applied on three kinds of fiber asbestos cover system, which makes the indoor air temperatures inside of comfort zones values, as intended to expose by graphics, made by real time and automatic experimental measurements. The measurements of data acquisitions were made by automatic CR10X Campbell Scientific Inc., 30 seconds scanner and totalized storage as 30 minutes average intervals. This means a very accurate result of values of outdoor and indoor climate translated by indoor and out door air temperatures.

The thesis deals with the evaluation of indoor environment cab passenger car, with a focus on thermal comfort of passengers. The theoretical part contains the fundamentals of heat transfer, analysis of the aspects affecting human thermal comfort and its assessment methods. A brief description of the ventilation and air conditioning systems used in passenger cars is mentioned. The practical part includes numerical simulations of indoor environment, in selected driving modes and at different climatic conditions. Results of simulations lead to evaluation the status of the internal environment in terms of thermal comfort.

The internal thermal climatic condition of a house is directly affected by how the building envelope (walls, windows and roof) is designed to suit the environment it is exposed to. The way in which the building envelope is constructed has a great affect on the energy required for heating and cooling to maintain human thermal comfort. Understanding how the internal climatic conditions react to the building envelope construction is therefore of great value. This study investigates how the thermal behaviour inside of a simple house reacts to changes made to the building envelope with the objective to predict how these changes will affect human thermal comfort when optimising the design of the house. A three-dimensional numerical model was created using computational fluid dynamic code (Ansys Fluent) to solve the governing equations that describe the thermal properties inside of a simple house. The geometries and thermophysical properties of the model were altered to simulate changes in the building envelope design to determine how these changes affect the internal thermal climate for both summer and winter environmental conditions. Changes that were made to the building envelope geometry and thermophysical properties include: thickness of the exterior walls, size of the window, and the walls and window glazing constant of emissivity. Results showed that there is a substantial difference in indoor temperatures, and heating and cooling patterns, between summer and winter environmental conditions. The thickness of the walls and size of the windows had a minimal effect on internal climate. It was found that the emissivity of the walls and window glazing had a significant effect on the internal climate conditions, where lowering the constant of emissivity allowed for more stable thermal conditions within the human comfort range.

College football stadiums host anywhere from 15,000 to 115,000 people each Saturday from late summer to early winter and leave fans exposed to ambient conditions. Amplified heat from stadium infrastructure substantially impact attendants’ thermal comfort. In order to assess personal heat exposure and mitigate exposure misclassification, temperature and relative humidity sensors (iButtons) were placed throughout Mississippi State University’s Davis Wade Stadium during the 2016 Football Season. iButton measurements established a micro-climate and compared its readings to the Soil Climate Analysis Network site 1.2 miles north of the stadium. The program RayMan Pro modeled a Physiological Equivalent Temperature (PET) micro-climate to create an individualized heat metric. The results of this study assess stadium occupants’ thermal comfort through Heat Index and PET. Heat-related health outcomes were examined regarding thermal comfort and the stadium micro-climate using data from the stadium’s EMS calls and First Aid stations during game days.

The impact that the indoor environment has on productivity is a topic that has been investigated in numerous studies. There are a variety of different methods that have been used to evaluate productivity with. There are quantitative methods and there are qualitative ones, and both have been used in the literature as indicators or real productivity. The quantitative ones are for instance short arithmetical or linguistic performance tests or measurements of the actual quantitative output of a job. Qualitative assessments of productivity consist of different ways of allowing the subjects to rate their own productivity. Both these two approaches of evaluating productivity are claimed to be subject to different issues, and the question of which way is preferable is a matter of contention among the researchers. The quantitative approach is claimed to be unable to reflect the complex and qualitative output of many modern jobs, while the qualitative one is believed to be highly influenced by bias. This master’s degree project has investigated the associations between the two approaches and conducted a qualitative assessment of the impact of the indoor environment on the productivity in a university building in Stockholm. Numerous studies have been reviewed that include both quantitative evaluations of productivity and qualitative evaluations of the indoor environment. Qualitative evaluations are for instance evaluations of environmental satisfaction, as well as evaluations of healthiness and productivity. The relationship between the quantitative measurements and the subjective evaluation is indeed complex. However, there appears to be a consistency to some extent between the two, and the trend seems to indicate that occupants who are more productive are also more satisfied with the indoor environment or perceive themselves to be healthier or more productive. A working hypothesis has been formulated; that subjective evaluations of the indoor environment may act as indicators of productivity. This approach has been used in a university building in Stockholm, where the productivity of the students has been evaluated through a survey, together with physical measurements of the indoor environment. The survey is designed based on the current literature within the field. It has a large emphasis on productivity, with several questions concerning it directly and indirectly. The physical parameters that were measured were radiant temperature, air velocity, relative humidity, CO2- concentration and sound pressure level. Considerable correlations were observed between perceived productivity and environmental satisfaction, perceived environmental control and between different ways of evaluating productivity subjectively. The correlations between the physical measurements and the subjective evaluations were in general considerably weaker than the ones between the different subjective parameters. The correlations between the mean CO2-concentration and productivity was weak, and similar findings were obtained concerning sound pressure level. This emphasise the importance of heeding the opinions of the occupants while evaluating the performance of a building, as physical measurements alone appear to be unable to reflect the users’ perspective reliably. The correlation between the thermal parameters (evaluated by the PMV- value) and the subjective evaluations were, on the other hand, considerably stronger. This may indicate that the thermal parameters are among the most influential ones in creating a productive workplace. Furthermore, the study discusses different methods that have been used to evaluate productivity with. It discusses their weaknesses and strengths and what elements they contain that may be used for future studies of productivity.

Directional airflow has been utilized to enable targeted air conditioning in cars and airplanes for many years, where the occupants could adjust the direction of flow. In the building sector however, HVAC systems are usually equipped with stationary diffusors that can only supply the air either in the form of diffusion or with fixed direction to the room in which they have been installed. In the present thesis, the possibility of adopting directional airflow in lieu of the conventional uniform diffusors has been investigated. The potential benefits of such a modification in control capabilities of the HVAC system in terms of improvements in the overall occupant thermal comfort and energy consumption of the HVAC system have been investigated via a simulation study and an experimental study. In the simulation study, an average of 59% per cycle reduction was achieved in the energy consumption. The reduction in the required duration of airflow (proportional to energy consumption) in the experimental study was 64% per cycle. The feasibility of autonomous control of the directional airflow, has been studied in a simulation experiment by utilizing the Reinforcement Learning algorithm which is an artificial intelligence approach that facilitates autonomous control in unknown environments. In order to demonstrate the feasibility of enabling the existing HVAC systems to control the direction of airflow, a device (called active diffusor) was designed and prototyped. The active diffusor successfully replaced the existing uniform diffusor and was able to effectively target the occupant positions by accurately directing the airflow jet to the desired positions. / M.S. / The notion of adjustable direction of airflow has been used in the car industry and airplanes for decades, enabling the users to manually adjust the direction of airflow to their satisfaction. However, in the building the introduction of the incoming airflow to the environment of the room is achieved either by non-adjustable uniform diffusors, aiming to condition the air in the environment in a homogeneous manner. In the present thesis, the possibility of adopting directional airflow in place of the conventional uniform diffusors has been investigated. The potential benefits of such a modification in control capabilities of the HVAC system in terms of improvements in the overall occupant thermal comfort and energy consumption of the HVAC system have been investigated via a simulation study and an experimental study. In the simulation study, an average of 59% per cycle reduction was achieved in the energy consumption. The reduction in the required duration of airflow (proportional to energy consumption) in the experimental study was 64% per cycle on average. The feasibility of autonomous control of the directional airflow, has been studied in a simulation experiment by utilizing the Reinforcement Learning algorithm which is an artificial intelligence approach that facilitates autonomous control in unknown environments. In order to demonstrate the feasibility of enabling the existing HVAC systems to control the direction of airflow, a device (called active diffusor) was designed and prototyped. The active diffusor successfully replaced the existing uniform diffusor and was able to effectively target the occupant positions by accurately directing the airflow jet to the desired positions.

Advances in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) paved the way for decentralized Heating, Ventilation, and Air-Conditioning (HVAC) HVAC operations. It has been envisioned that development of personal thermal comfort profiles leads to accurate predictions of each occupant's thermal comfort state and such information is employed in context-aware HVAC operations for energy efficiency. This dissertation has three key contributions in realizing this envisioned HVAC operation. First, it presents a systematic review of research trends and developments in context-aware HVAC operations. Second, it contributes to expanding the feasibility of the envisioned HVAC operation by introducing novel sensing technologies. Third, it contributes to shedding light on viability and potentials of comfort-aware operations (i.e., integrating personal thermal comfort models into HVAC control logic) through a comprehensive assessment of energy efficiency implications. In the first contribution, by developing a taxonomy, two major modalities – occupancy-driven and comfort-aware operations – in Human-In-The-Loop (HITL) HVAC operations were identified and reviewed quantitatively and qualitatively. The synthesis of previous studies has indicated that field evaluations of occupancy-driven operations showed lower potentials in energy saving, compared to the ones with comfort-aware operations. However, the results in comfort-aware operations could be biased given the small number of explorations. Moreover, required data representation schema have been presented to foster constructive performance assessments across different research efforts. In the end, the current state of research and future directions of HITL HVAC operations were discussed to shed light on future research need. As the second contribution, moving toward expanding the feasibility of comfort-aware operations, novel and smart sensing solutions have been introduced. It has been noted that, in order to have high accuracy in predicting individual's thermal comfort state (≥90%), user physiological response data play a key part. However, the limited number of applicable sensing technologies (e.g., infrared cameras) has impeded the potentials of implementation. After defining required characteristics in physiological sensing solutions in context of comfort-aware operations (applicability, sensitivity, ubiquity, and non-intrusiveness), the potentials of RGB cameras, Doppler radar sensors, and heat flux sensors were evaluated. RGB cameras, available in many smart computing devices, could be a ubiquitous solution in quantifying thermoregulation states. Leveraging the mechanism of skin blood perfusion, two thermoregulation state quantification methods have been developed. Then, applicability and sensitivity were checked with two experimental studies. In the first experimental study aiming to see applicability (distinguishing between 20 and 30C with fully acclimated human bodies), for 16 out of 18 human subjects, an increase in their blood perfusion was observed. In the second experimental study aiming to evaluate sensitivity (distinguishing responses to a continuous variation of air temperature from 20 to 30C), 10 out of 15 subjects showed a positive correlation between blood perfusion and thermal sensations. Also, the superiority of heat flux data, compared to skin temperature data, has been demonstrated in predicting personal thermal comfort states through the developments of machine-learning-based prediction models with feature engineering. Specifically, with random forest classifier, the median value of prediction accuracy was improved by 3.8%. Lastly, Doppler radar sensors were evaluated for their capability of quantifying user thermoregulation states leveraging the periodic movement of the chest/abdomen area induced by respiration. In an experimental study, the results showed that, with sufficient acclimation time, the DRS-based approach could show distinction between respiration states for two distinct air temperatures (20 and 30C). On the other hand, in a transient temperature without acclimation time, it was shown that, some of the human subjects (38.9%) used respiration as an active means of heat exchange for thermoregulation. Lastly, a comprehensive evaluation of comfort-aware operations' performance was carried out with a diverse set of contextual and operational factors. First, a novel comfort-aware operation strategy was introduced to leverage personal sensitivity to thermal comfort (i.e., different responses to temperature changes; e.g., sensitive to being cold) in optimization. By developing an agent-based simulation framework and thorough diverse scenarios with different numbers and combinations of occupants (i.e., human agents in the simulation), it was shown that this approach is superior in generating collectively satisfying environments against other approaches focusing on individual preferred temperatures in selection of optimized setpoints. The energy implications of comfort-aware operations were also evaluated to understand the impact from a wide range of factors (e.g., human and building factors) and their combinatorial effect given the uncertainty of multioccupancy scenarios. The results demonstrated that characteristics of occupants' thermal comfort profiles are dominant in impacting the energy use patterns, followed by the number of occupants, and the operational strategies. In addition, when it comes to energy efficiency, more occupants in a thermal zone/building result in reducing the efficacy of comfort-driven operation (i.e., the integration of personal thermal comfort profiles). Hence, this study provided a better understanding of true viability of comfort-driven HVAC operations and provided the probabilistic bounds of energy saving potentials. These series of studies have been presented as seven journal articles and they are included in this dissertation. / Doctor of Philosophy / With vision of a smart built environment, capable of understanding the contextual dynamics of built environment and adaptively adjusting its operation, this dissertation contributes to context-aware/decentralized HVAC operations. Three key contributions in realization of this goal include: (1) a systematic review of research trends and developments in the last decade, (2) enhancing the feasibility of quantifying personal thermal comfort by presenting novel sensing solutions, and (3) a comprehensive assessment of energy efficiency implications from comfort-aware HVAC operations with the use of personal comfort models. Starting from identifying two major modalities of context-aware HVAC operations, occupancy-driven and comfort-aware, the first part of this dissertation presents a quantitative and qualitative review and synthesis of the developments, trends, and remaining research questions in each modality. Field evaluation studies using occupancy-driven operations have shown median energy savings between 6% and 15% depending on the control approach. On the other hand, the comfort-aware HVAC operations have shown 20% energy savings, which were mainly derived from small-scale test beds in similar climate regions. From a qualitative technology development standpoint, the maturity of occupancy-driven technologies for field deployment could be interpreted to be higher than comfort-aware technologies while the latter has shown higher potentials. Moreover, by learning from the need for comparing different methods of operations, required data schemas have been proposed to foster better benchmarking and effective performance assessment across studies. The second part of this dissertation contributes to the cornerstone of comfort-aware operations by introducing novel physiological sensing solutions. Previous studies demonstrated that, in predicting individual's thermal comfort states, using physiological data in model development plays a key role in increasing accuracy (>90%). However, available sensing technologies in this context have been limited. Hence, after identifying essential characteristics for sensing solutions (applicability, sensitivity, ubiquity, and non-intrusiveness), the potentials of RGB cameras, heat flux sensors, and Doppler radar sensors were evaluated. RGB cameras, available in many smart devices, could be programmed to measure the level of blood flow to skin, regulated by the human thermoregulation mechanism. Accordingly, two thermoregulation states' quantification methods by using RGB video images have been developed and assessed under two experimental studies: (i) capturing subjects' facial videos in two opposite temperatures with sufficient acclimation time (20 and 30C), and (ii) capturing facial videos when subjects changed their thermal sensations in a continuous variation of air temperature from 20 to 30C. Promising results were observed in both situations. The first study had subjects and 16 of them showed an increasing trend in blood flow to skin. In the second study, posing more challenges due to insufficient acclimation time, 10 subjects had a positive correlation between the level of blood flow to skin with thermal sensation. With the assumption that heat flux sensing will be a better reflection of thermoregulation sates, a machine learning framework was developed and tested. The use of heat flux sensing showed an accuracy of 97% with an almost 4% improvement compared to skin temperature. Lastly, Doppler radar sensors were evaluated for their capability of quantifying thermoregulation states by detecting changes in breathing patterns. In an experimental study, the results showed that, with sufficient acclimation time, the DRS-based approach could show distinction between respiration states for two distinct air temperatures (20 and 30C). However, using a transient temperature was proven to be more challenging. It was noted that for some of the human subjects (38.9%), respiration was detected as an active means of heat exchange. It was concluded that specialized artifact removal algorithms might help improve the detection rate. The third component of the dissertation contributed by studying the performance of comfort-driven operations (i.e., using personal comfort preferences for HVAC operations) under a diverse set of contextual and operational factors. Diverse scenarios for interaction between occupants and building systems were evaluated by using different numbers and combinations of occupants, and it was demonstrated that an approach of addressing individual's thermal comfort sensitivity (personal thermal-comfort-related responses to temperature changes) outperforms other approaches solely focusing on individual preferred temperatures. The energy efficiency implications of comfort-driven operations were then evaluated by accounting for the impact of human and building factors (e.g., number of thermal zones) and their combinations. The results showed that characteristics of occupants' thermal comfort profiles are dominant in driving the energy use patterns, followed by the number of occupants, and operational strategies. As one of the main outcomes of this study, the energy saving and efficiency (energy use for comfort improvement) potentials and probabilistic bounds of comfort-driven operations were identified. It was shown that keeping the number of occupants low (under 6) in a thermal zone/building, boosts the energy saving potentials of comfort-driven operations. These series of studies have been presented as seven journal articles, included in this dissertation.

Boas alternativas nas escolhas de materiais construtivos em um projeto arquitetônico possibilitam de forma mais assertiva os aspectos de conforto térmico em habitações de interesse social. A existência de normas que determinem alguns parâmetros de conforto térmico não significa que a unidade habitacional esteja dentro dos parâmetros ideais, já que dependem de bons projetos, correta execução da obra e estarem adequadas às restrições econômicas dos usuários. Esta pesquisa teve como motivação revelar as reclamações dos usuários referentes ao conforto térmico no interior das unidades habitacionais do BNH de Santos, construído em 1969, identificando quais eram os principais problemas térmicos ocorridos nestas unidades habitacionais. O objetivo desta pesquisa é verificar se os usuários encontram-se dentro dos padrões de conforto térmico estabelecidos por normas existentes e recomendar possíveis soluções que colaborem para que os apartamentos estejam dentro dos parâmetros de conforto térmico adequados. Através de relatos dos usuários, foi proposta uma medição no local cuja finalidade era identificar se havia compatibilidade entre os resultados obtidos na APO aplicada com os resultados medidos e identificar se estas compatibilidades aplicavam-se as normas de conforto térmico existentes. Simulações no software energyplus foram realizadas com a finalidade de propor melhorias projetuais nos apartamentos que estivessem em desconforto térmico. Os resultados mostram que a maioria dos usuários entende que, ao longo do ano, os apartamentos possuem temperaturas elevadas, gerando desconforto térmico. Estes desconfortos ocorrem possivelmente à ocupação de cada apartamento, além da influência da radiação solar direta que cada apartamento recebe ao longo do dia. / The current wide range of alternatives in building materials makes it possible for architects to have greater control over aspects affecting thermal comfort in their designs for social dwelling. The existence of rules governing thermal comfort parameters does not mean that dwelling units are always constructed within the optimal parameters, as this depends on the quality of projects, the correct execution of construction work, and the economic constraints of users. This study was motivated by user complaints relating to thermal comfort inside the BNH Santos dwelling units, which were built in 1969. These complaints identify the main thermal problems occurring in the dwellings units. The objective of this research is to verify whether users live within the existing standards for thermal comfort, and to recommend possible solutions so that the apartments can all be within proper thermal comfort parameters. Based on reports from users, measurements were taken on site to determine whether there was compatibility between the results obtained in the POE and the measured results, and to identify whether any compatibilities applied to existing standards of thermal comfort. Energyplus software simulations were carried out, in order to determine proposed improvements to apartments whose inhabitants were experiencing thermal discomfort. The results show that most users understand that, during the year, the apartments have high temperatures that generate thermal discomfort. This discomfort may occur as a result of the occupation of each apartment, and may go beyond the influence of the direct sunlight that each apartment receives throughout the day.

Boas alternativas nas escolhas de materiais construtivos em um projeto arquitetônico possibilitam de forma mais assertiva os aspectos de conforto térmico em habitações de interesse social. A existência de normas que determinem alguns parâmetros de conforto térmico não significa que a unidade habitacional esteja dentro dos parâmetros ideais, já que dependem de bons projetos, correta execução da obra e estarem adequadas às restrições econômicas dos usuários. Esta pesquisa teve como motivação revelar as reclamações dos usuários referentes ao conforto térmico no interior das unidades habitacionais do BNH de Santos, construído em 1969, identificando quais eram os principais problemas térmicos ocorridos nestas unidades habitacionais. O objetivo desta pesquisa é verificar se os usuários encontram-se dentro dos padrões de conforto térmico estabelecidos por normas existentes e recomendar possíveis soluções que colaborem para que os apartamentos estejam dentro dos parâmetros de conforto térmico adequados. Através de relatos dos usuários, foi proposta uma medição no local cuja finalidade era identificar se havia compatibilidade entre os resultados obtidos na APO aplicada com os resultados medidos e identificar se estas compatibilidades aplicavam-se as normas de conforto térmico existentes. Simulações no software energyplus foram realizadas com a finalidade de propor melhorias projetuais nos apartamentos que estivessem em desconforto térmico. Os resultados mostram que a maioria dos usuários entende que, ao longo do ano, os apartamentos possuem temperaturas elevadas, gerando desconforto térmico. Estes desconfortos ocorrem possivelmente à ocupação de cada apartamento, além da influência da radiação solar direta que cada apartamento recebe ao longo do dia. / The current wide range of alternatives in building materials makes it possible for architects to have greater control over aspects affecting thermal comfort in their designs for social dwelling. The existence of rules governing thermal comfort parameters does not mean that dwelling units are always constructed within the optimal parameters, as this depends on the quality of projects, the correct execution of construction work, and the economic constraints of users. This study was motivated by user complaints relating to thermal comfort inside the BNH Santos dwelling units, which were built in 1969. These complaints identify the main thermal problems occurring in the dwellings units. The objective of this research is to verify whether users live within the existing standards for thermal comfort, and to recommend possible solutions so that the apartments can all be within proper thermal comfort parameters. Based on reports from users, measurements were taken on site to determine whether there was compatibility between the results obtained in the POE and the measured results, and to identify whether any compatibilities applied to existing standards of thermal comfort. Energyplus software simulations were carried out, in order to determine proposed improvements to apartments whose inhabitants were experiencing thermal discomfort. The results show that most users understand that, during the year, the apartments have high temperatures that generate thermal discomfort. This discomfort may occur as a result of the occupation of each apartment, and may go beyond the influence of the direct sunlight that each apartment receives throughout the day.