Congratulations to Dr Wei Zhao on being awarded his PhD

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Dr Wei Zhao standing in front of the sea and looking to the horizon

Congratulations to Dr Wei Zhao on being awarded his PhD in April 2022. Wei’s thesis is entitled ‘Adaptive Thermal Comfort and Behavioural Adaptation of rural residents and their energy-saving potential: A case study in Lankao in the Cold Climate Zone of China’. The study involved a thermal comfort field surveys of a questionnaire survey and simultaneous measurements of the residents and their habitat environment in the winter and summer seasons. A total of 610 valid questionnaires were collected and analysed, and it was concluded that the indoor operative temperature in rural houses changes with outdoor climate, and the overcooling problem in winter was more severe than the overheating problem in summer.

A dynamic indoor clothing insulation predictive models for rural residents was proposed and developed which reflects rural residents` clothing adaptation to outdoor climate; Adaptive thermal comfort and clothing adaptation of rural residents significantly change indoor setpoint temperature and has great energy-saving potential.

Dr Zhao presented his research to the Minister of Energy of Burkina Faso, Dr Bashir Ouedraogo, at the University of Manchester on 1st August 2018, and despite Burkina Faso having a somewhat different climate, the Minister was highly interested in his work and the potential of it being adapted for Burkina Faso.

Dr Zhao presented his research at the Sustainable Built Environment Conference 2019 (SBE 19) in Cardiff, UK on 24th- 25th September 2019, and has published the following conference papers:

  • Zhao, Wei; Chow, David; Sharples, Steve; (2020). Developing adaptive thermal comfort models and evaluation criteria for rural low-income residents in China. Conference PLEA 2020, Spain. ISBN: 978-84-9749-794-7. Legal Deposit: C 1551-2020. DOI: https://doi.org/10.17979/spudc.9788497497947
  • Zhao, Wei; Chow, David; Sharples, Steve; (2019). The relationship between thermal environments and clothing insulation for rural low-income residents in China in winter. International Sustainable Built Environment Conference 2019: Policy to Practice, SBE 2019, September 24, 2019 - September 25, 2019, Cardiff, United Kingdom, IOP Publishing Ltd.

Dr Zhao has also published the five peer-reviewed journal articles whilst pursuing his PhD:

  • Zhao, Wei; Chow, David; Yan, Haiyan; Sharples, Steve. (2022). "Influential factors and predictive models of indoor clothing insulation of rural residents: A case study in China's cold climate zone." Building and Environment 216.
  • Yan, Haiyan; Liu, Qianqiang; Zhao, Wei; (2020). "The coupled effect of temperature, humidity, and air movement on human thermal response in hot–humid and hot–arid climates in summer in China." Building and Environment 177: 106898.
  • Yu, Bingqing; Zhao, Wei; Lv, Hongyi; (2020). "Improvement of Suitable Energy-Saving Window for Traditional Dwellings in Central Henan Province." Building energy saving 48(03): 89-93+99. (Chinese)
  • Li, Zhilei; Chow, David HC; Yao, Jian; Zheng, Xiao; Zhao, Wei; (2019). "The effectiveness of adding horizontal greening and vertical greening to courtyard areas of existing buildings in the hot summer cold winter region of China: A case study for Ningbo." Energy and Buildings 196: 227-239.
  • Li, Zhilei; Chow, David HC; Ding, De; Ying, Jia; Hu, Yingjian; Chen, Hong, Zhao, Wei. (2020). "The development and realisation of a multi-faceted system for green building planning: A case in Ningbo using the fuzzy analytical hierarchy process." Energy and Buildings 226: 110371.