Thermal resistance of clothing in human biometeorological models

Abstract

Three different clothing thermal resistance (r cl) schemes are compared using meteorological and human data collected in Martonvásár. Model 1 is the most complex, it is energy balance based. Model 3 is the simplest, it is the UTCI-clothing model used as submodel in the UTCI (Universal Thermal Climate Index) scheme. It uses air temperature as sole input. Model 2 uses more data than model 3, the data used are the thermal insulation values of the clothing worn. Meteorological data refer to the town Martonvásár. The data were collected in the period August 9, 2016-May 23, 2018. The main result is that the r cl values obtained by model 1 differ significantly in most of the cases from the results obtained by models 3 or 2. The fact that the results of model 1 rarely match the results of model 3 or model 2 suggests that the energy balance between human body and environment is rarely achieved, merely this is the case in approximately 10 percent of the cases.

Keywords

• clothing thermal resistance
• energy balance of the human body
• clothing ensemble
• air temperature
• environmental heat deficite
• metabolic heat flux density