Abstract
There is increasing concern about the health effects of the severe thermal environment in urban area. Because of these situations, it is important to estimate the thermal comfort for environmental improvements and designs. Several studies have been performed dealing with the increasing problems of worsening thermal environment. However, only few studies have been performed that cover the theme of conditions in outdoor space. In the present study, a thermal comfort index for outdoor environment was newly proposed. The field experiments were conducted in the open space. Based on the heat balance in human body, the thermal load of human body is calculated from the mean skin temperature and the surrounding environmental factors such as air temperature, solar radiation and wind speed. A correlation between the measured thermal sensation of all subjects and the evaluated thermal load was recognized enough. The thermal sensation in outdoor space could be evaluated by the thermal load as a thermal comfort index. The new findings could provide fundamental data for the improvement of outdoor living environments.
