Calculation method of mean skin temperature weighted by temperature sensitivity of various parts of human body

• Published in: Journal of thermal biology Vol. 100; p. 102995
• Main Authors: Liu, Guodan, Liang, Shuwei, Hu, Songtao
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Ltd 01.08.2021; Elsevier BV
• Subjects: Adult; Algorithms; ambient temperature; Body temperature; Body Temperature Regulation; cold; Female; Five-point method; heat tolerance; Humans; Male; Mean skin temperature; Methods; Movement; Organ Specificity; sensation; Sensitivity coefficient weighting method; Skin; skin (animal); Skin Temperature; Temperature; Thermometry - methods; Thermometry - standards; Thermosensing; thermosensitivity; Five-point method; Sensitivity coefficient weighting method; Mean skin temperature
• ISSN: 0306-4565; 1879-0992
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jtherbio.2021.102995

Skin temperature is an important physiological parameter, and its calculation methods are varied, and the results are different. At present, the area weighting method is mostly used to calculate the mean skin temperature. However, the skin of various parts of the human body has different degrees of sensitivity to temperature changes. Based on this, this article proposes two calculation methods using the weighting of the cold and heat sensitivity coefficients. This article conducted experiments with different ambient temperatures (18 °C/20 °C/22 °C), clothing thermal resistances (1.10 clo/1.31 clo/1.44 clo), and activity levels (sitting/standing/walking) to obtain the subjects' local skin temperature. And then compared and analyzed the calculation results of the above-mentioned two sensitivity coefficient methods and the traditional area weighting method. The results found that there is no significant difference between the two sensitivity coefficient methods proposed in this article (the absolute difference is up to 0.09 °C, and the relative difference is less than 0.4%), but there is a certain difference with the traditional area weighting method. The ANOVA shows that the deviation is mainly affected by the ambient temperature (P < 0.01), and the thermal resistance of clothing and activity level have no significant effects (P > 0.05). By studying the relationship between mean skin temperature and thermal sensation voting, it is found that when the human skin temperature changes due to environmental temperature changes, the mean skin temperature and thermal sensation calculated by new method have a higher linearity (correlation coefficient R2 > 0.92), and the slope is larger, which can better reflect the influence of thermal environment changes on the human body's thermal sensation. •This article proposes two methods to calculate the mean skin temperature.•This method considers difference in skin sensitivity to temperature changes.•The new method is more accurate in most working conditions.