Thermal Comfort Standard Second to Be Translated into Arabic

From eSociety, March 2019

The Arabic translation of ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 55-2017, Thermal Environmental Conditions for Human Occupancy, is the second ASHRAE standard available in the language.

A team from ASHRAE Region-at-Large recently finished the translation of ASHRAE Standard 55-2017, which is related to thermal comfort, into Arabic, according to ASHRAE Region-at-Large Director and Regional Chair Ahmed Alaa Eldin Mohamed, Ph.D., Member ASHRAE.

“The essential purpose of translating ASHRAE standards into Arabic is to make them available to Arabic speakers who have difficulty understanding the requirements of English standards and want to understand these requirements in order to apply them practically,” he said. “Translations also help Arab government bodies adopt ASHRAE standards as a local code.”

A team from the Falcon Chapter translated ASHRAE Standard 62.1-2016, Ventilation for Acceptable Indoor Air Quality, into Arabic in 2018, making it the first ASHRAE standard to be translated into Arabic.

He said Standard 55 was chosen to be translated next because of its importance on how to achieve the thermal satisfaction in indoor environments—especially with the challenges that come with achieving indoor thermal comfort in hot and humid climates in the Middle East.

“Some government bodies, such as Dubai Municipality, require partial compliance with the requirements of Standard 55,” he said.

The Region-at-Large team who translated Standard 55 included Ahmed Alaa; main translator and reviewer Osama Atef Khayat, Member ASHRAE; Mohammad Ali Alhemide, Associate Member ASHRAE; and Mohammad Khalil Haleemeh, Affiliate Member ASHRAE. All involved were volunteers.

“ASHRAE is always keen to advance the arts and sciences of HVAC on the global level as a permanent mission and a clear vision; therefore, it paid attention to translate the publications into other languages such as Arabic, Spanish, Chinese and Portuguese,” Ahmed Alaa said.

Standard 55 specifies conditions for acceptable thermal environments and is intended for use in design, operation, and commissioning of buildings and other occupied spaces. The 2017 edition incorporates seven published addenda to the 2013 edition and provides three compliance methods—a graphic method for simple situations, an analytical method for more general cases and a method that uses elevated air speed to provide comfort.

Since 2013, Standard 55 has been rewritten with a renewed focus on application of the standard by practitioners and use of clear, enforceable language.