Human Design, Comfort and Discomfort Evaluation

Abstract

In this work the human design, the thermal comfort and the local thermal discomfort are evaluated. In the design the human geometry is developed for a standard seating occupant. In the thermal comfort the PMV and the PPD indexes are calculated. In the local thermal discomfort, the Draught Risk is evaluated. The study, that considers the Human Thermal Modelling, calculates the evolution of the temperature in the body, namely in the skin and cold and warm thermo-receptors. The thermal comfort is dependent of the heat exchange between the body and the environment and the draught risk is dependent of the air temperature, air velocity and air turbulence intensity. The Human Thermal Modelling, that works in steady state and transient conditions, is based not only on the energy balance integral equations for the human body tissue, arterial and venous blood, but also on mass balance integral equations for the blood and transpired water in the skin surface. The clothing thermal system is based not only on the energy balance integral equations for the clothing, but also on mass balance integral equations for the transpired water in the clothing. In the thermal comfort, a mean air velocity is considered in steady state conditions, while in the Draught Risk two different air velocities Root Mean Square are considered in transient conditions.