STUDY ON THERMAL COMFORT OF WOOD TABLETOP MATERIALS

The purpose of this study is to investigate the contact temperature and thermal comfort when the upper extremity touches a wooden table top, and to seek an efficient accurate simulation device instead of human testing. Therefore, three parts of this paper were conducted. First, 20 subjects were selected for the temperature test experiment. Secondly, theperceptual thermal comfort evaluation was quantified by recording the thermal comfort evaluation at aspecific moment. Finally, a device was developed to replace the human forearm for upper limb thermal comfort study. The results show that the ambient temperature, type and thickness of material all have significant effects on the local contact temperature. Interms of thermal comfort evaluation, the correlation between temperature and thermal comfort was significant. The simulation device in the study is not only simple to operate, but also can continuously and stably replace the heat transfer process of the upper limb.