A Thermal Model for the Human Ensemble System

Numerous thermal models have been developed for the human body. Most of them are only for the nude person. Without applying clothing, the human thermal models have very limited uses. In this paper, a comprehensive numerical model was developed for the coupled transport of energy and mass through the human ensemble system. In the development, not only has attention been paid to the theoretical relations between heat and moisture in the ensemble system, special attention has also been paid to the integration between the human and clothing thermal models. The model was developed such that clothing can be easily applied to the human thermal model the way people put their clothing on. Since the model is integrated with a human thermal model it is applicable in a wide range of real life applications. Model predictions and experimental results were compared for a variety of transient environmental exposures. The results, which show substantial agreement, indicate that the model can be used to simulate the thermal responses of the human ensemble system generally and accurately under different environmental conditions, be it uniform or non-uniform, steady or transient.