Towards temperature limits for museums: a building simulation study for four museum zones with different quality of envelope

Controlling temperature (T) and relative humidity (RH) in museums is very important for collection preservation. However, recent research shows that many artifacts tolerate more fluctuations, certainly for T, resulting in the paradigm shift that RH is predominantly determined by collection requirements and T by thermal comfort requirements. More research should be attributed to thermal comfort in museums. Thermal comfort research in buildings shows that the PMV-model is valid for full air-conditioned buildings (HVAC), but not for naturally ventilated buildings (NV). Because many museums may be classified as HVAC-building, the PMV-model was used with typical input values for museums to develop temperature limits as a function of outdoor temperature. Building simulations have been performed of four museum zones with different quality of envelopes and various indoor climate conditions: a reference situation (20°C and 50% RH), existing Adaptive Comfort Guidelines and the PMV-based temperature limits developed in this study. The results show significant energy savings, revealing the importance of temperature limits for museums. Further research is needed to include the effect of expectation (psychological adaptation) and validation of the PMV-based temperature limits.