Analysis of Transient Heat Conduction and Its Applications

Abstract

The qmax; value was introduced as a measure of predicting warm/cool feeling of fabrics by Kawabata et al., where qmax; is the peak value of heat flux which flows out of a copper plate having a finite amount of heat into surface of fabric after the plate contacts the fabric surface.In this paper, at first, a theoretical prediction of qmax; is given as a transient heat conduction within homogeneous body and the predicted qmax; was interpreted with respect to the effects of test condition and the thermal properties of test specimen.Secondly, heat conduction within human skin after the contact of an object was analyzed. It was found that there is a time lag between the contact of metal plate and the detection of warm/cool feeling at the sensory spot in the skin. It was also found that the time lag within the skin can be effectively replaced by a first order lag electrical circuit.This result supports the validity of using qmax; as a measure of warm/cool feeling.