Development and Use of a New Architecture of Thermal Manikin for Assessing Local Thermal Comfort

Advanced thermal manikins, simulating the human body's thermoregulatory system, are innovative tools to assess thermal comfort in various environments, impacting occupant well-being and productivity. This paper focuses on a 71-zone thermal manikin for local thermal comfort assessment. It measures the ‘equivalent temperature’, a quantitative assessment of physical heat balance conditions, considering both convective and radiant heat exchanges. Using LabVIEW software, it calculates total heat flux for specific zones based on power consumption or heat loss and surface temperature, further normalized to interior climate for equivalent temperature. The equivalent temperature of a segment indicates local thermal comfort. Thermal manikins allow local scale thermal comfort assessment and local sensation prediction through the equivalent temperature or a local Predicted Mean Vote (PMV), replacing air and operative temperature. Future integration of the thermal manikin with lab-developed respiratory systems will enhance understanding of respiratory flow interactions with local thermal comfort.