2002 Volume 6 Issue 1 Pages 19-29
This paper is a report of research concerning the development of an evaluation system of thermal comfort in a vehicle. A new calculation method developed in a dispersed two-node method is presented here to predict regional physiological responses of a human in the steady state.
Since thermal comfort in various vehicle compartments has recently been shown to impact customer satisfaction, air conditioning performance is a critical quality that can improve this effect. In cooperation with this tendency, several complicated methods coupling a detailed thermoregulation model with CFD applied to vehicle development have been published. Although they are very useful in the planning phase of new car development, at the same time, structure designers require a simpler method in the improvement phase when the prototype vehicle has been already prepared. Then, aiming at the target precision of the skin temperature as less than 1°C for a limited environmental zone and limited persons, a simple method that takes the fundamental mechanism of physiological response of a human body into consideration is developed. The model constants are determined to give the target precision by experimental studies using 4 male subjects. Through this research, following standing features of this model are realized, 1) Simple algorithm, 2) Corresponding to the conventional two-node model, 3) Practical precision.
