Guodan Liu, Yao Zhang, Peiqi Zhang, Huiyang Zhong, Yihang Ji, Haonan Ma, Mingli Lu, Xiaojie Zhou, Songtao Hu
{"title":"Thermal Comfort and Sensitivity of Different Body Parts Exposed to Local Infrared Radiation","authors":"Guodan Liu, Yao Zhang, Peiqi Zhang, Huiyang Zhong, Yihang Ji, Haonan Ma, Mingli Lu, Xiaojie Zhou, Songtao Hu","doi":"10.1155/ina/5526614","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Infrared radiation equipment, as a typical personal comfort system (PCS) unit, could effectively improve human thermal sensation vote (TSV) in cold environments. It could also be positioned diversely and controlled independently to meet personalized thermal requirements. However, the heat transfer principle of infrared radiation differs from thermal convection and conduction. Most parts of the human body were covered by clothes in winter; thus, the thermal responses differed from those uncovered. As a result, studies on the thermal responses and thermal sensitivity of different parts with clothing to local radiation were limited. An experiment was conducted at the indoor air temperature of 18°C in winter, during which five body parts were stimulated by infrared radiation at the intensity of 4 and 20 W/m<sup>2</sup>. Subsequently, the indoor environment and physiological parameters were measured. Meanwhile, the local and overall thermal responses of the human body were collected with questionnaires. Furthermore, the calculation method based on thigh sweating rate was determined as an approach to assess the sensitivity of each body part to infrared radiation more precisely. In terms of this method, the chest was more sensitive to infrared radiation than limbs, and the intensity of the infrared radiation had greater impacts on chest sensitivity while fewer effects on limbs. These findings could help improve the reliability in predicting and evaluating human thermal responses to infrared radiation environments and also provided references for the applications of infrared radiation PCS devices.</p>","PeriodicalId":13529,"journal":{"name":"Indoor air","volume":"2025 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3000,"publicationDate":"2025-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1155/ina/5526614","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Indoor air","FirstCategoryId":"93","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1155/ina/5526614","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"CONSTRUCTION & BUILDING TECHNOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Infrared radiation equipment, as a typical personal comfort system (PCS) unit, could effectively improve human thermal sensation vote (TSV) in cold environments. It could also be positioned diversely and controlled independently to meet personalized thermal requirements. However, the heat transfer principle of infrared radiation differs from thermal convection and conduction. Most parts of the human body were covered by clothes in winter; thus, the thermal responses differed from those uncovered. As a result, studies on the thermal responses and thermal sensitivity of different parts with clothing to local radiation were limited. An experiment was conducted at the indoor air temperature of 18°C in winter, during which five body parts were stimulated by infrared radiation at the intensity of 4 and 20 W/m2. Subsequently, the indoor environment and physiological parameters were measured. Meanwhile, the local and overall thermal responses of the human body were collected with questionnaires. Furthermore, the calculation method based on thigh sweating rate was determined as an approach to assess the sensitivity of each body part to infrared radiation more precisely. In terms of this method, the chest was more sensitive to infrared radiation than limbs, and the intensity of the infrared radiation had greater impacts on chest sensitivity while fewer effects on limbs. These findings could help improve the reliability in predicting and evaluating human thermal responses to infrared radiation environments and also provided references for the applications of infrared radiation PCS devices.
期刊介绍:
The quality of the environment within buildings is a topic of major importance for public health.
Indoor Air provides a location for reporting original research results in the broad area defined by the indoor environment of non-industrial buildings. An international journal with multidisciplinary content, Indoor Air publishes papers reflecting the broad categories of interest in this field: health effects; thermal comfort; monitoring and modelling; source characterization; ventilation and other environmental control techniques.
The research results present the basic information to allow designers, building owners, and operators to provide a healthy and comfortable environment for building occupants, as well as giving medical practitioners information on how to deal with illnesses related to the indoor environment.