Thermal sensation and comfort models for non-uniform and transient environments: Part I: Local sensation of individual body parts

A three-part series presents the development of models for predicting the local thermal sensation (Part I) and local comfort (Part II) of different parts of the human body, and also the whole-body sensation and comfort responses (Part III). The models predict these subjective responses to the environment from thermophysiological measurements or predictions (skin and core temperatures). The models apply to a range of environments: uniform and non-uniform, transient and stable. They are based on diverse results from the literature and from body part-specific human subject tests in a climate chamber. They were validated against a test of passengers in automobiles. This series is intended to present the rationale, structure, and coefficients for these models so that others can test and develop them further as additional empirical data becomes available. The experimental methods and some measured results from the climate chamber tests have been published previously.Part I describes thermal sensation models representing 19 individual local body parts. The models' structure and coefficients were derived by regression of skin and core temperatures against thermal sensation votes obtained in the chamber experiments. The sensation for each local body part is predicted by a logistic function with four inputs: local skin temperature, mean-skin temperature presenting the whole-body thermal state, and the time derivatives of skin and core temperatures representing the response to transients. These inputs can be obtained from thermophysiological computer programs that treat the body as multiple segments.     

Thermal sensation and comfort models for non-uniform and transient environments, part III: Whole-body sensation and comfort

A three-part series presents the development of models for predicting the local thermal sensation (Part I) and local thermal comfort (Part II) of different parts of the human body, and also the whole-body sensation and comfort (Part III) that result from combinations of local sensation and comfort. The models apply to sedentary activities in a range of environments: uniform and non-uniform, stable and transient. They are based on diverse findings from the literature and from body-part-specific human subject tests in a climate chamber. They were validated against a test of automobile passengers. The series is intended to present the models’ rationale, structure, and coefficients, so that others can test them and develop them further as additional empirical data becomes available.A) The whole-body (overall) sensation model has two forms, depending on whether all of the body's segments have sensations effectively in the same direction (e.g warm or cool), or whether some segments have sensations opposite to those of the rest of the body. For each, individual body parts have different weights for warm versus cool sensations, and strong local sensations dominate the overall sensation. If all sensations are near neutral, the overall sensation is close to the average of all body sensations.B) The overall comfort model also has two forms. Under stable conditions, people evaluate their overall comfort by a complaint-driven process, meaning that when two body parts are strongly uncomfortable, no matter how comfortable the other body parts might be, the overall comfort will be near the discomfort level of the two most uncomfortable parts. When the environmental conditions are transient, or people have control over their environments, overall comfort is better than that of the two most uncomfortable body parts. This can be accounted for by adding the most comfortable vote to the two most uncomfortable ones.     

Overall thermal sensation,acceptability and comfort

The relationships between overall thermal sensation, acceptability and comfort were studied experimentally under uniform and non-uniform conditions separately. Thirty subjects participated in the experiment and reported their local thermal sensation of each body part, overall thermal sensation, acceptability and comfort simultaneously. Sensation, acceptability and comfort were found to be correlated closely under uniform conditions and acceptable range ran from neutral to 1.5 (midpoint between ‘Slightly Warm’ and ‘Warm’) on thermal sensation scale and contained all comfortable and slightly uncomfortable votes on thermal comfort scale. Under non-uniform conditions overall thermal acceptability and comfort were correlated closely. However, overall thermal sensation was apart from the other two responses and non-uniformity of thermal sensation was found to be the reason for the breakage. Combining the effects of overall thermal sensation and non-uniformity of thermal sensation, a new thermal acceptability model was proposed and the model was testified to be applicable to uniform and non-uniform conditions over a wide range of whole body thermal state from neutral to warm.     

Local thermal sensation and comfort study in a field environment chamber served by displacement ventilation system in the tropics

This paper presents a study of local thermal sensation (LTS) and comfort in a field environmental chamber (FEC) served by displacement ventilation (DV) system. The FEC, 11.12 m (L)×7.53 m (W)×2.60 m (H), simulates a typical office layout. A total of 60 tropically acclimatized subjects, 30 male and 30 female, were engaged in sedentary office work for 3 h. Subjects were exposed to three vertical air temperature gradients, nominally 1, 3 and 5 K/m, between 0.1 and 1.1 m heights and three room air temperatures of 20, 23 and 26 °C at 0.6 m height. The objective of this study is to investigate the mutual effect of local and overall thermal sensation (OTS) and comfort in DV environment. The results show that in a space served by DV system, at OTS close to neutral, local thermal discomfort decreased with the increase of room air temperature. The OTS of occupants was mainly affected by LTS at the arm, calf, foot, back and hand. Local thermal discomfort was affected by both LTS and OTS. At overall cold thermal sensation, all body segments prefer slightly warm sensation. At overall slightly warm thermal sensation, all body segments prefer slightly cool sensation.     

Local and overall thermal comfort in an aircraft cabin and their interrelations

In this study the interrelation between local and overall thermal comfort of passengers in aircraft cabins was investigated by thirteen simulated flights. For each of the tests forty test persons filled out questionnaires concerning their perceived overall and local thermal comfort at temperatures of 20 °C–25 °C, which were measured at every second seat. With these physical and subjective data PMV (Predicted Mean Vote) and TSMV (Thermal Sensation Mean Vote) of test persons as well as PPD (Predicted Percentage of Dissatisfied) and PD (Percentage of Dissatisfied) were compared. The PMV was consistently similar to the TSMV, while the thermal dissatisfaction in tests was always higher than PPD. The hypothesis at the beginning of this study was that the high ratio of thermal dissatisfaction in the aircraft cabin reported in literature might be caused by local discomfort. Therefore statistical analyses about the interrelations between local and overall thermal comfort were performed and models indicating such interrelations were developed. Some local perceptions are significantly different from overall thermal perception and these body segments alter in dependence of the overall thermal environment. Also body segments rated similarly were detected and these segments were pooled to distinct body regions using principal component analysis. Under the same overall thermal sensation the local thermal perception on a certain body region predominantly influenced the overall thermal comfort. Therefore weighting factors of local body regions on the overall thermal comfort were determined in dependence of the overall thermal sensation by means of multiple linear regression models.     

均匀和不均匀热环境下热感觉、热可接受度和热舒适的关系

对30名受试者采用问卷调查的方式,研究了均匀热环境和不均匀热环境下人体全身热感觉、热可接受度和热舒适的关系。结果显示,在均匀热环境下,全身热感觉、热可接受度和热舒适具有较强的线性相关关系,可接受范围涵盖了(0,1.5)的热感觉投票和"舒适"与"稍有不适"标度范围内的热舒适投票;在不均匀热环境下,全身热可接受度与热舒适密切相关,而全身热感觉与热可接受度和热舒适出现分离,热感觉不均匀度是其原因。综合考虑全身热感觉和热感觉不均匀度的影响,提出了综合评价模型。经验证,该模型适用于全身热状态为中性偏热的均匀和不均匀热环境。     

关于"热舒适"的讨论

指出了人体热反应研究中关于热舒适的一些模糊概念及对热舒适与热感觉关系的含混认识。分析了热舒适与热感觉的不同含义、现有的不同解释及两者的稳态和动态条件下的差别。     

关于热感觉和热舒适与热适应性的讨论

系统地论述了人体热舒适研究的发展过程,讨论了热感觉、热舒适及热适应的定义,并分析了热感觉与热舒适的差异及与热适应性的关系,得出了人们对同一热环境有不同的热感觉及热舒适性,主要是由于人体的适应性产生的。     

Thermal comfort of people in the hot and humid area of China—impacts of season,climate, and thermal history

We conducted a climate chamber study on the thermal comfort of people in the hot and humid area of China. Sixty subjects from naturally ventilated buildings and buildings with split air conditioners participated in the study, and identical experiments were conducted in a climate chamber in both summer and winter. Psychological and physiological responses were observed over a wide range of conditions, and the impacts of season, climate, and thermal history on human thermal comfort were analyzed. Seasonal and climatic heat acclimatization was confirmed, but they were found to have no significant impacts on human thermal sensation and comfort. The outdoor thermal history was much less important than the indoor thermal history in regard to human thermal sensation, and the indoor thermal history in all seasons of a year played a key role in shaping the subjects' sensations in a wide range of thermal conditions. A warmer indoor thermal history in warm seasons produced a higher neutral temperature, a lower thermal sensitivity, and lower thermal sensations in warm conditions. The comfort and acceptable conditions were identified for people in the hot and humid area of China.     

A field study of occupant thermal comfort and thermal environments with radiant slab cooling

This paper presents the findings of a field study of occupant thermal comfort and thermal environments with a radiant slab cooling system. The study combined field measurements and questionnaires based on the ASHRAE RP-921 project protocol. A total of 116 sets of data from 82 participants were collected in summer and winter. The results reveal that occupant whole-body thermal sensations with radiant cooling were consistent with the PMV model. The main advantage of radiant cooling for thermal comfort was found to be reduced local thermal discomfort with reduced vertical air temperature difference as well as reduced draft rate. The survey results revealed that 14–22% of participants in the study reported local cold discomfort in the arm–hand and the leg–foot regions. The results indicated that there may be lower limits on air speeds acceptable to occupants. Statistical analysis indicated that occupant thermal votes were free of significant correlation with personal, contextual and psychological factors. Suggestions to improve the questionnaire and the field survey process are offered.     

Integrated thermal comfort analysis using a parametric manikin model for interactive real-time simulation

Following the work of Fiala (Fiala, D., Lomas, K., and Stohrer, M., 2001. Computer prediction of human thermoregulatory and temperature-responses to a wide range of environmental conditions. International Journal of Biometeorology, 45, 143–159) we developed and tested a parametric multi-segment manikin model as the interface between Fiala's human thermoregulation model and other computational codes for studying transient and local effects of thermal sensation and comfort perception. The model allows for motion control by transforming body parts according to an armature model which relates topological dependencies. The position of joints and decomposition into segments is chosen in terms of the settings of Fiala's model. Several faceted geometric models are available such as the NASA MSIS Standard or predefined NASTRAN geometries. The developed thermoregulation interface provides means to computational steering, i.e. to interact with an ongoing simulation. The boundary conditions, the type of clothing, or the activity level can be modified online, results are updated on a real time scale during the simulation. The visualization on the artificial skin of the manikin includes the surface/skin temperatures and the local thermal sensation votes (LTSV); likewise the predicted mean vote (PMV) and the dynamic thermal sensation (DTS) are output. The LTSV data are based on experimental data which were obtained in a test chamber involving 24 test subjects for three levels of clothing insulation and a light level of activity.     

Experimental study of the influence of anticipated control on human thermal sensation and thermal comfort

To investigate whether occupants’ anticipated control of their thermal environment can influence their thermal comfort and to explain why the acceptable temperature range in naturally ventilated environments is greater than that in air‐conditioned environments, a series of experiments were conducted in a climate chamber in which the thermal environment remained the same but the psychological environment varied. The results of the experiments show that the ability to control the environment can improve occupants’ thermal sensation and thermal comfort. Specifically, occupants’ anticipated control decreased their thermal sensation vote (TSV) by 0.4–0.5 and improved their thermal comfort vote (TCV) by 0.3–0.4 in neutral‐warm environment. This improvement was due exclusively to psychological factors. In addition, having to pay the cost of cooling had no significant influence on the occupants’ thermal sensation and thermal comfort in this experiment. Thus, having the ability to control the thermal environment can improve occupants’ comfort even if there is a monetary cost involved.     

Effect of local exposure on human responses

At room temperatures ranging from 28 to 35 °C, the three sensitive body parts face, chest and back were exposed to local cooling airflow, whose temperatures ranged from 22 to 28 °C. Dressed in shorts, 30 randomly selected male subjects were exposed to each condition for 30 min and reported their local thermal sensations of all body parts, overall thermal sensation and thermal acceptability on voting scales at regular intervals. It was shown that local exposure affected local thermal sensations of the unexposed body parts significantly, based on which a new influencing factor method was proposed. Influencing factor and weighting factor for each body part are unaffected by room or cooling air temperatures under steady state and the predictive model of overall thermal sensation was obtained using influencing and weighting factors. Taking the maximum thermal sensation difference between body parts to represent non-uniformity of thermal sensation, a new assessment model for non-uniform thermal environment was proposed. The model shows that the upper boundary of the acceptable room temperature range can be shifted from 26 to 30.5 °C while face cooling is provided.     

Simulating the human body's microclimate using automatic coupling of CFD and an advanced thermoregulation model

This study aims to develop an approach to couple a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) solver to the University of California, Berkeley (UCB) thermal comfort model to accurately evaluate thermal comfort. The coupling was made using an iterative JavaScript to automatically transfer data for each individual segment of the human body back and forth between the CFD solver and the UCB model until reaching convergence defined by a stopping criterion. The location from which data are transferred to the UCB model was determined using a new approach based on the temperature difference between subsequent points on the temperature profile curve in the vicinity of the body surface. This approach was used because the microclimate surrounding the human body differs in thickness depending on the body segment and the surrounding environment. To accurately simulate the thermal environment, the numerical model was validated beforehand using experimental data collected in a climate chamber equipped with a thermal manikin. Furthermore, an example of the practical implementations of this coupling is reported in this paper through radiant floor cooling simulation cases, in which overall and local thermal sensation and comfort were investigated using the coupled UCB model.     

现场研究中热舒适指标的选取问题

对热舒适现场研究结果进行了总结，并对热舒适指标的选取、有效温度的计算、热感觉的表述方式等问题进行了讨论分析。认为当相对湿度在热舒适范围内时，采用有效温度作为热舒适指标并采用平均热感觉值，能更好地预测人体热感觉。     

个性化通风系统的热舒适性分析

个性化通风系统可以改善空气质量、改善人体热舒适性。介绍了个性化通风改善热舒适性方面的研究成果,指出可以利用局部热感觉对整体热感觉的影响、通过个性化送风手段来满足人的不同热舒适要求。     

热湿工况下工位辐射空调的热舒适实验研究

为研究热湿工况下使用工位辐射空调的人体热舒适情况,在人工环境实验室内,通过改变环境背景温度来影响人体的热感觉,并采用热感觉投票(TSV)作为评价标准,重点研究了人体头部、躯干、上肢、下肢以及整体热感觉情况。实验结果表明,尽管背景环境参数超出舒适范围,但使用工位辐射空调能维持受试者的舒适状态,即背景温度稳定在28℃时,平均整体热感觉投票值低于+0.2;背景温度为30℃时,受试者热感觉仍能满足ASHRAE规范中规定的80%可接受范围要求。     

Assessing thermal comfort of active people in transitional spaces in presence of air movement

The aim of this study is to develop a modeling methodology to assess thermal comfort and sensation of active people in transitional spaces and consider how comfort can be achieved by air movement while changing upper body clothing properties. The modeling is based on a bioheat model, capable of predicting segmental skin and core temperature from locally ventilated clothed body parts. The bioheat model is integrated with thermal comfort and sensation models to predict comfort in presence of air movement.The model accuracy in predicting comfort was validated by and agreed with the results of a survey administered to subjects wearing typical clothing at different activity levels to record their overall and local thermal sensation and comfort in a transitional space at Beirut summer climate. The transitional space temperature monitored during the experiments ranged between 27 °C and 30 °C.A parametric study is performed to assess thermal comfort in transitional spaces for different air movement levels and for three clothing designs. The high permeable clothing at 1.5 m/s and indoor temperature of 30 °C improved the Predicted Mean Vote to values less than 0.5 compared to 1.01 attained with typical low permeable clothing.     

Thermal comfort, skin temperature distribution, and sensible heat loss distribution in the sitting posture in various asymmetric radiant fields

This study aimed at investigating the thermal comfort for the whole body as well as for certain local areas, skin temperatures, and sensible heat losses in various asymmetric radiant fields. Human subject experiments were conducted to assess the overall comfort sensation and local discomfort, and local skin temperatures were measured. Through thermal manikin experiments, we discovered a new method for the precise measurement of the local sensible heat loss in nonuniform thermal environments. The local sensible heat losses were measured by the use of a thermal manikin that had the same local skin temperatures as the human subjects. The experimental conditions consisted of the anterior–posterior, right–left, and up–down asymmetric thermal environments created by radiation panels. A total of 35 thermal environmental conditions were created ranging from 25.5 to 30.5 °C for air temperature, from 11.5 to 44.5 °C for surface temperature of radiation panels, from 40% RH to 50% RH for humidity, and less than 0.05 m/s for inlet air velocity to the climatic chamber. The local skin temperature changed depending on the environmental thermal nonuniformity, even if the mean skin temperature remained almost the same. It is essential to use the skin temperature distribution as well as mean skin temperature for expressing thermal comfort in nonuniform environments. The local sensible heat loss changed depending on the environmental thermal nonuniformity, even if the mean sensible heat loss remained almost the same. The relationship between the local skin temperature and local sensible heat loss cannot be depicted by a simple line; instead, it varies depending on the environmental thermal nonuniformity. The local heat discomfort in the head area was dependent on both the local skin temperature and local sensible heat loss. However, the local cold discomfort in the foot area was related only to the local skin temperature.     

非空调环境下性别与热舒适的关系

对长沙某高校的600多名学生进行了为期一年的现场问卷调查,对有关空气参数进行了测量。统计分析结果表明,女性的耐寒能力比男性差;预期平均评价PMV指标对男女热感觉的预测效果较差;男女对湿感觉的评价无较大差异,只在温度较低时,女性比男性觉得更潮湿;女性的吹风感比男性强;热舒适评价不仅受热、湿感觉影响,还受其他环境因素及心理因素的影响。