Application of a thermo-physiological model to determine sweating thermo-active zone for a medical staff subject

Abstract

Thermo-physiological models represent a valid approach for the study of person-environment energy interactions and constitute an alternative and promising methodology for the study of comfort in all those cases in which the Fanger’s statistical model is not applicable. By dividing the body into several segments, and these into several nodes, including physiological variables among the inputs and detailing the representation of clothing, these models are better suited to application in the healthcare sector, as they can take into account pathological states that alter physiological responses (patients) and specific types of clothing and activities (medical staff). In this work, the Tanabe 65 MN model, implemented in the ABICS opensource software, has been used to identify the thermo-active zones in which sweating occurs on at least one section of the body for a person of the medical staff. A parametric analysis was developed by varying the ambient temperature (20 - 36 °C), the relative humidity (40 - 60%), the metabolic rate (1.5 - 2.0 met) and considering a young subject (30 years) and an older one (60 years). These zones were identified on charts correlating the skin temperature to the ambient one. In both cases, a similar trend is observed: the average temperature of the skin, at which sweating occurs, increases as the ambient temperature grows and on average this mechanism is activated for lower skin temperatures in the case of the older individual.