Comparison of Calculation Methods for Basic Clothing Insulation with a Thermal Manikin

Abstract

A comparative analysis is presented on the three conventional methods and our new one for eval uating the basic thermal insulation of cloting. A thermal manikin regulated at constant temperature over all parts was seated on a chair and, in the steady state, the environmental temperature, the amount of heat which the manikin lost, and the local skin temperature at nineteen points were measured for various cloth ing ensembles covering the body. From the data obtained were estimated the thermal insulation only by the skin when the manikin was unclothed and that by the total when clothed ; based on these the basic ther mal insulation of each clothing was evaluated by the current methods as well as ours and the results were compared. An investigation also on the role of the insulation by the outer clothing surface revealed that, if it was neglected, greater errors might be caused in estimating the basic thermal insulation of clothing. © 1994, The Society of Fiber Science and Technology, Japan. All rights reserved.