Modelling Heat Losses from the Human Body

During the past four decades, much progress has been achieved in order to fully comprehend the term ‘thermal comfort’, but yet this term is still hard to define. Since generally comfort is defined in terms of different factors influencing the human body, it should be characterised from different angles. In addition, subjective concerns greatly influence the perception of thermal comfort for each individual alone. Different persons perceive thermal comfort in different ways exposed to the same influencing variables. The sensation of feeling thermally comfortable can be none the less generally defined. The conditions that provide a thermally comfortable state of mind fall into the span that the majority of people would find satisfactory. Still, there are number of environmental, personal and clothing factors that should be defined along the way. Since clothing provides a barrier to heat and moisture transfer between skin and environment, it is considered as one of the most important factors in modelling the heat losses from the human body. This chapter summarizes the complexity and dynamics of the heat and moisture transfer in the whole body–clothing–environment system with emphasis on clothing as the prime factor to mediate the convective, radiative and evaporative heat exchange.