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Opportunities and constraints of presently used thermal manikins for thermo-physiological simulation of the human body

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Abstract

Combining the strengths of an advanced mathematical model of human physiology and a thermal manikin is a new paradigm for simulating thermal behaviour of humans. However, the forerunners of such adaptive manikins showed some substantial limitations. This project aimed to determine the opportunities and constraints of the existing thermal manikins when dynamically controlled by a mathematical model of human thermal physiology. Four thermal manikins were selected and evaluated for their heat flux measurement uncertainty including lateral heat flows between manikin body parts and the response of each sector to the frequent change of the set-point temperature typical when using a physiological model for control. In general, all evaluated manikins are suitable for coupling with a physiological model with some recommendations for further improvement of manikin dynamic performance. The proposed methodology is useful to improve the performance of the adaptive manikins and help to provide a reliable and versatile tool for the broad research and development domain of clothing, automotive and building engineering.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Dr. Matthew Morrissey from Empa for the fruitful discussions on improving the calibration protocol for the manikin SAM and consultation on scientific English writing.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, St. Gallen, Switzerland

    Agnes Psikuta, Simon Annaheim & René M. Rossi

  2. Ergonomics and Aerosol Technology, Design Sciences, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

    Kalev Kuklane

  3. Thermal Load Laboratory, Central Institute for Labour Protection-PIB, Warsaw, Poland

    Anna Bogdan

  4. Air Conditioning and Heating Department, Faculty of Environmental Engineering, Warsaw University of Technology, Warsaw, Poland

    Anna Bogdan

  5. Environmental Ergonomics Research Centre, Loughborough Design School, Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK

    George Havenith

Authors
  1. Agnes Psikuta
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  2. Kalev Kuklane
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  3. Anna Bogdan
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  4. George Havenith
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  5. Simon Annaheim
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  6. René M. Rossi
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Correspondence to Agnes Psikuta.

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Psikuta, A., Kuklane, K., Bogdan, A. et al. Opportunities and constraints of presently used thermal manikins for thermo-physiological simulation of the human body. Int J Biometeorol 60, 435–446 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-015-1041-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-015-1041-7

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