Clothing adjustment in outdoor environment: A new clothing model based on temperature change

Abstract

Clothing adjustment is an essential way for people to adapt to the weather changes and maintain thermal comfort in an outdoor environment. In this study, it was assumed that outdoor clothing adjustment was influenced by the local past temperatures. With temperature changes, clothing adjustment could be divided into “free adjustment phase” and “restricted adjustment phase”. Two consecutive years of outdoor field investigation experiments were conducted in 6 typical outdoor spaces in Changsha, China, which was hot in summer and cold in winter. During the field experiment, outdoor thermal environment parameters were measured in real-time, meanwhile, clothing and thermal comfort of participants were documented. The analysis results of field experiment data verified the assumption. 7876 effective samples were collected to build a creative outdoor clothing model (OCM) considering the weather characteristics of Changsha based on running mean temperature and four-parameter logistic function. The determination coefficient (R2) of the OCM was 0.954, which was higher than the existing models. Moreover, prediction deviations were within 20% for 86% samples. According to the OCM, the range of running mean temperature corresponding to the free adjustment phase was 4 °C–24 °C for the Changsha residents. The free changes of clothing insulation during this phase enabled people to maintain thermal comfort in the outdoor environment. The OCM proposed in this study can provide a theoretical basis for evaluating outdoor thermal comfort and wearing appropriately according to the temperature.