Differences in comfort perception in relation to local and whole body skin wettedness

Relevance of local skin wettedness (wlocal) to general thermal comfort while wearing clothing was investigated in eight males. In the experiments, skin wettedness of the whole body (wbody) was controlled to be around the thermal comfort limit, while wlocal in different target locations of equal area (anterior and dorsal torso, arms, and thighs) was pushed beyond the comfort limit using special test garments. Subjects walked on a treadmill at 4.5 km h−1 under 22°C 50% RH. Arms and thighs were thermally in discomfort when their wlocal exceeded 0.32. On the other hand, discomfort in the anterior and dorsal torso was initiated when their wlocal arrived at 0.42 and 0.45. That is, the relation of the local comfort limit with wlocal differed depending upon the location. It was observed; however, that general discomfort was not induced when wbody remained below 0.36 even if wlocal was higher than its local comfort limit.

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