Physiological Responses of the Human Body on a Change of the Floor Temperature in Indoor

인공기후실내의 바닥온도 변화에 의한 인체의 생리적 반응

The purpose of this study is to clarify the floor temperature on the human body and to estimate thermal comfort zone in a heated room. In order to evaluate the effects of floor heating, a series of experiments were carried out using Korean subjects. The following experiments were conducted: 1) to obtain the effective radiation area and configuration factors of the person in the sitting posture on a floor to get the mean radiant temperature, 2) to measure contacted area of the person to the floor to calculate conduction heat rate, 3) to measure convective heat transfer coefficient of the body and 4) to know the thermal comfort zone of indoor environment heated by ON-DOL. Subjects were exposed to the following conditions: combinations of air temperature $20^{\circ}C$, $22.5^{\circ}C$, $25^{\circ}C$, and floor temperature $20^{\circ}C$, $22.5^{\circ}C$, $25^{\circ}C$, $27.5^{\circ}C$, $30^{\circ}C$, $32.5^{\circ}C$, $35^{\circ}C$, $37.5^{\circ}C$, $40^{\circ}C$ under still air and 50% relative humidity in the controllable artificial climate chamber. To evaluate the effect of heat conduction between the body and a floor modified mean skin temperature was defined. Weighting coefficient to calculate mean skin temperature were modified with the contacted area. The experiments revealed a positive correlation between the modified operative temperature and the modified mean skin temperature. The modified mean skin temperature can indicate the effect of heat conduction between body and a floor surface.