Abstract
Shoes are essential for decreasing the amount of impact force at the landing. The impact force generates heat, thus sometimes the temperature in shoes rises more than 40 ℃ in outdoor in summer. Therefore thermal environment in shoes is harsh. However, there are few researches addressing the formation of thermal environment in shoes. In the present study, the authors carried out the experiment with subjects for quantitative evaluation of temperature change during various walking condition, and established energy flow model. The authors measured temperature under various walking condition of walking speed. Through the experiment, the pressure value and contact area of feet, landing, swing time, and feet moving velocity during walking. The authors established energy flow model and carried out the numerical simulation for predicting thermal environment in shoes. In the model, the heat was gained by landing, human metabolic, and ground surface temperature. On the other hand, the heat was lose by feet movement with convection heat transfer. The heat was mainly transferred by conduction within human skin. Some parameters in the simulation were decided by using subject experiments. The result of the numerical simulation for predicting thermal environment in shoes qualitatively agreed with subject experiments by using two-dimensional heat conduction model. However, temperatures in numerical simulation was slightly higher than the experiments. The detailed considerations remain as future works.
