It is important to improve the human comfort. One of major methods for human thermal comfort in living environment is to utilize clothing effectively. The clothing microclimate is a small gap space between the human body and clothing, and the clothing microclimate greatly influences the comfortability of a wearer, thus it is beneficial to investigate the air flow and heat transfer characteristics in clothing microclimate. The air flow would be the primary contributor for heat and humidity dissipation. Therefore, we mainly focused on the air flow characteristics in clothing microclimate. In the present study, we measured air flow and heat transfer characteristics in clothing microclimate under various clothing opening conditions. As a result, the natural convection was induced depending on the temperature difference between the human body and air in the microclimate, and the air flows and heat transfer characteristics in clothing microclimate was determined by the opening rate or air gap width of clothing.

This study investigates the physical and chemical processes for constructing a glaze-based erbium oxide film on an alumina plate. Furthermore, suitable sintering conditions and effective methods to reduce scattering through the film are investigated for TPV applications. As a result, it was showed that (1) CaEr₄(SiO₄)₃O was formed via the reaction sintering between Er₂O₃ particles and melted lime glaze, (2) a weight ratio of approximately 2:3 of the Er₂O₃ to the glaze and a sintering temperature above 1250°C were desirable, and (3) using large size (>10 μm) Er₂O₃ particles with high density and Er nitrate hydrate instead of the particles resulted in a reduced scattering efficiency of individual Er oxide particles within the glaze.