ASHRAE Journal - November 2020 - 34

ASHRAE - CELEBRATING 125 YEARS

FIGURE 2 ASHRAE Standard 55 graphic comfort zone method chart from 1981 (left), 1992 (center) and 1994 (right).

Fred Rohles worked closely with Nevins, and arrived
about the same time the new "ASHRAE" laboratory
opened at KSU. His background was psychology, not
engineering. This shows that thermal comfort is a multidisciplinary field. He played a very important role in
understanding human subjective response and how to
analyze such data.
In the same ASHRAE Leadership Recall video, Rohles
said, "...I came [to] KSU in '63 and presented the first
paper [at a Denver ASHRAE meeting] in '71. And that
was due primarily to a fellow named Pharo Gagge.... I
worked for Gagge when I was in the Air Force. He was a
colonel in the Air Force, at the Pierce Laboratory in New
Haven, Connecticut... When I came aboard here I had
no idea I was going to be involved with him at all. So
he had this seminar at the ASHRAE meeting in Denver
where I presented a paper. And he and Jim Hardy, who
was also at Pierce Laboratory, said, 'Fred this is an organization you ought to get involved in, that you ought to
join.' I said 'what would a fellow with my background do
in here?' He said we need people like that. So that was
essentially it."
In this test facility at Kansas State University, the
studies forming the basis for Fanger's predicted mean
vote-predicted percentage of dissatisfied (PMVPPD) index were made during his one-year stay at
KSU in the late 1960s. He went back to the Technical
University of Denmark (DTU), where in 1970 he
published his famous doctoral thesis "Thermal
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Comfort: Analysis and Applications in Environmental
Engineering."6 Fanger, like Gagge, is a member of the
ASHRAE Hall of Fame. He started the research and
educational program at DTU's Laboratory of Heating
and Air Conditioning on the influence of indoor
environment on humans. In the 1970s the focus was
on thermal comfort, and in the late 1980s, its focus
changed more to indoor air quality. In 1998 he established from a large amount of funding by Danish
government the International Centre for Indoor
Environmental Quality (ICIEE) at DTU. This research
group is still one of the leading groups dealing with
the impact of indoor environmental quality on people. More details on Fanger's research is presented in
a paper by D'Ambrosio, et. al.7

ASHRAE Standards and Publications Related
To Thermal Comfort
ASHRAE early on included information on thermal
comfort in the Heating, Ventilating, Air Conditioning Guide
(the precursor to the ASHRAE Handbook), which published by ASHRAE's predecessor society, American
Society of Heating and Ventilating Engineers.
Unfortunately, in the 1930s research and knowledge
on thermal comfort were not as advanced as they are
today. As an example, you could find the following text
in 1936's Heating, Ventilating, Air Conditioning Guide, Chapter
3: "It should be kept in mind that southern people,
with their more sluggish heat production and lack of

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ASHRAE Journal - November 2020

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