[en] Highlights: • Five parts of heat loads are discussed in the TBM room. • Field tests of the air temperature in the TBM room are carried out. • An unsteady model is developed to predict the air temperature in the TBM room. • A linearly increase of air temperature with RT and TBM efficiency is obtained. • Ventilation cannot ensure the air temperature lower than 28 °Cfor RT higher than 45 °C. -- Abstract: In this work, field tests on the air temperature in the TBM (tunnel boring machine) room are initially carried out for TBM on and off, respectively. A simulation model is subsequently developed and reproduced the tests. The comparison shows an acceptable agreement, thus this model is adopted to study effects of RT (rock temperature), TBM utilization factor and construction ventilation on the air temperature in the TBM room. The results show the air temperature reaches a steady state after 20 min. The steady air temperature increases linearly with the increase of RT and TBM utilization factor. The air temperature is higher than 28 °C when RT is greater than 17.7 °C or when TBM utilization factor is greater than 38.0%. Effects of construction ventilation are discussed as well. The air temperature is observed to decreases in a form of parabola with the increase of fresh air volume, whereas it increases linearly with the increase of fresh air temperature. As a result, it can be found that ventilation is a very useful method to reduce the air temperature in the TBM room. But it is not enough to provide a workable and comfortable thermal environment when RT is higher than 45 °C.