Resumen
This research concerns a first approach to adapt the thermal comfort bands of the Physiological Equivalent Temperature (PET), New Standard Effective Temperature (SET), and Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) indices to Santa Maria?s population, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, on the basis of the application of perception/sensation questionnaires to inhabitants while, at the same time, recording meteorological attribute data. Meteorological and thermal sensation data were collected from an automatic weather station installed on paved ground in the downtown area, which contained the following sensors: a scale gauge; a global radiation sensor; a temperature and humidity sensor; a speed and wind direction sensor; a gray globe thermometer. First of all, air temperature, gray globe temperature, relative air humidity, wind speed, wind gust, global solar radiation and precipitation were collected. People were interviewed using a questionnaire adapted from the model established by ISO 10551. The results demonstrated the efficiency of the linear regression model and the adequacy of the interpretive indexes, presenting results different from those analyzed by other authors in different climatic zones. These differences meet the analyzed literature and attest to the effectiveness of the calibration method of the PET, SET, and PMV indices for the Brazilian subtropical climate. After calibration, the PET index hit rate increased from 32.8% to 69.3%. The SET index, which had an initial hit rate of 34.6% before calibration, reached a hit-rate of 64.9%, while the PMV index increased from 35.9% to 58.7%.