Does detailed hygrothermal transport analysis in respiratory tract affect skin surface temperature distributions by thermoregulation model?

ABSTRACT The prediction of the physiological response of the human body to the thermal environment is essential for healthy and comfortable indoor environmental design; hence, various rational thermoregulation models for estimating skin surface temperature have been developed based on the physics of heat and mass transfer between the human body and indoor environment, and on cybernetic models of the thermoregulatory system. Most of these models calculate the respiratory heat loss through the function of the pulmonary ventilation as well as the difference in water content between expiratory and inspiratory air, which describes a steady respiration process with a constant flow rate and fixed values of inspired/expired vapour pressure. In this study, a coupling numerical model combined with a thermoregulation model and a computer simulated person (CSP) with respiratory tract model that can be integrated with computational fluid dynamics has been developed. The coupling thermoregulation model used here are the multi-node model proposed by Stolwijk et al. and two-node model of Gagge, respectively. Based on this CSP with the thermoregulation model, a coupling analysis method combining the thermoregulation model and the model of dynamic heat and mass transfer/exchange in the respiratory tract is developed. This is followed by a discussion of the skin surface temperature predictions of the proposed model compared with those of the model using the traditional respiratory heat loss calculation method.