Research on the environmental thermal comfort based on manikin

The subjective evaluation and objective test are the main methods to study the thermal comfort sensation of the environment. The Predicted mean votes (PMV) are calculated by thermal environment parameters obtained from the test points in general objective tests. However, the unstable factors of indoor environment make the description and prediction comprehensively and accurately impossible by the traditional methods. Through the physical and physiological characteristics of Chinese population in the Chinese adult human database, 50 percentile male adults’ three dimensional physical data was selected to establish the manikin model. Controlling strategy was formulated according to the heat balance equation and thermal manikin test system was designed to test the exchanged heat between human body and environment in an unsteady and heterogeneous environment. In the specific heat and humidity environment created by the laboratory, the predicted mean vote (PMV) of the current environment was −0.8 by the thermal manikin test system. At the same time, the subjective evaluation tests were conducted in the environment and the thermal sensation vote (TSV) was −0.65. The relative error was only 2.1% between the subjective evaluations and the objective test results of the manikin.