Abstract
Infants are less thermally adapted to their environment and can be considered as needing protective measures against thermal environments. It is not ethical to conduct subject experiments on infants. Thermal insulation in clothing is an essential control coefficient for the evaluation of the thermal environment of an infant. A thermal manikin can be used as an alternative method for carrying out experiments and to control the thermal manikin based on heat balance. The purpose of this study was to clarify the thermal insulation of infants’ clothing. An infant thermal manikin was used to clarify the thermal insulation (Icl) of typical summer, mid-season, and winter clothing combinations for infants. The thermal insulation of typical seasonal clothing combinations was 0.30 clo for summer clothing, 0.57 clo for mid-season clothing and 1.02 clo for winter clothing. It was clarified that it is essential to consider clothing conditions by taking into account differences in posture and to define the clothing thermal insulation (Icl) when designing and evaluating thermal environments. When designing and evaluating an infant’s thermal environment, it is essential to investigate using data from infants.
Highlights
When planning and designing a thermal environment, design criteria values appropriate to the space are necessary
in the clothed state (It) is not ethical to conduct experiments on infants regarding thermal environments based on heat balance
To examine the thermal environment of infants, experiments and simulations using a human thermal model may be feasible by clarifying the human body coefficient values of infants
Summary
When planning and designing a thermal environment, design criteria values appropriate to the space are necessary. There are many physical factors, a thermal environment evaluation index derived from the heat balance of the human body, taking into account physiological and psychological temperature, is ordinarily used as a representative value for the environmental stimulus. Even if the thermal environment evaluation index is used as a representative value to design and evaluate the environment, coefficient values for the human body that constitute the thermal environment evaluation index and subject experiments, are required. It may be ethically unfeasible to conduct a human subject experiment on a particular group. In this case, a thermal manikin, which is a thermal model of the human body, is a useful experimental tool. Methods for controlling thermal manikins include constant surface temperature, constant heating value, and heat balance
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