Thermal Comfort Requirements of Sedentary College-Age Subjects during the Winter Season in Japan

• Published in: Journal of Home Economics of Japan Vol. 41; no. 5; pp. 437 - 445
• Main Author: TANABE, Shin-ichi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: The Japan Society of Home Economics 05.05.1990; 一般社団法人 日本家政学会
• Subjects: subject; thermal comfort; thermal environment; thermal sensation; 快適性; 温冷感; 温熱環境; 被服; 被験者
• ISSN: 0913-5227; 1882-0352
• DOI: 10.11428/jhej1987.41.437

During the winter season of 1987, seventy-eight Japanese college-age subjects were exposed in a climatic chamber to investigate the seasonal difference of neutral temperatures and their thermal comfort characteristics. It was found that the neutral temperature of Japanese subjects during the winter season was 25.3°C. During the winter season, the Japanese subjects preferred a 1.0°C lower temperature than the summer season but this difference was not statistically significant at the 5% level. However, this difference between neutral temperatures has significance at the 10% level. The difference of the neutral temperatures among Japanese during the winter season, Danes, and Americans was less than 0.3°C and is not statistically significant. The evaporative heat loss from the skin surface near the thermal neutrality zone in the present experiment was 10-15 W/m2, which agrees well with the results for Japanese subjects during the summer season and those predicted by Fanger and Gagge et al. Skin wettedness around thermal neutrality during the winter season for the Japanese subjects was 0.06, this figure agreeing quite well with those predicted by SET*. Twenty percent of the subjects reported cold dissatisfaction at the modified temperature of 23°C, and 30% of them at 22°C.