EVALUATING THERMAL ENVIRONMENTS BY USING A THERMAL MANiKiN WiTH CONTROLLED SKiN SURFACE TEMPERATURE

TLDR

The study introduces a thermal manikin with controlled skin surface temperature to measure nonuniform thermal environments. The authors describe the manikin’s design, control logic, an equivalent temperature (teq), a PMV calculation from heat loss, and calibrate these methods with fundamental data. The teq metric accurately captures the influence of local heat sources and asymmetrical conditions.

Abstract

This paper describes a method for measuring nonuniform thermal environments using a new thermal manikin with controlled skin surface temperature. The manikin and its control logic are described, and an equivalent temperature based on the thermal manikin (teq) is proposed and discussed. A method to calculate the PMV index from manikin heat loss is also given. To calibrate these methods, fundamental data were collected. The manikin-based equivalent temperature (teq) is shown to be effective at accounting for the effects of local heat sources and asymmetrical environmental conditions.