Department of Agricultural Sciences, La Trobe University, Bundoora,
Victoria 3083, Australia
Persons exposed to high temperature, or to
equivalent environmental factors, have quantifiable reactions, such as
reducing the resistance to both heat and moisture flow in skin tissues and clothing needed to maintain thermal equilibrium. The one-to-one relationship between this resistance in the walking person and temperature, with the other factors neutral, is the basis for the
apparent temperature scale and the derived heat index. When this
approach is taken to assess the thermal environment for a still person
exposed to heat in still air, there is a zone of ambient conditions in
which there are three solutions to the heat-balance equation.
Extraordinary thermal stress occurs, depending slightly on other
conditions, at ambient temperatures near 41°C, especially at high
humidity, because of the difficulty in carrying sweat vapor from the
person when free convection is minimal. This anomaly is examined for a
range of ambient vapor pressures and extra radiation. The rapid rise in
heat stress when ambient temperature just exceeds body temperature in
still conditions may explain the severity of some observed distress.
apparent temperature; free convection; heat stress; perspiration; stagnant air.
 |
SCOPE AND CONSTRAINTS |
Glossary
The binomial nomenclature enables a consistent and space-saving set of
abbreviations used throughout this paper.
First Part of Term
| A |
Apparent
|
| C |
Convective
|
 |
Difference between surface and environment
|
| E |
Evaporative
|
| F |
Clothing
|
| G |
Absorbed/emitted extra radiation
|
| I |
Internal, core, or rectal (body)
|
| K |
Conductive
|
| L |
Forced convective
|
| M |
Metabolic
|
| N |
Natural convective
|
| O |
Outer
|
| P |
Proportion
|
| R |
Radiative
|
| S |
Skin surface
|
| T |
Skin tissue
|
| U |
Outer surface (skin or clothing)
|
| V |
By breathing
|
| Y |
Mean of boundary layer next to body's surface, whether clothed or bare
|
| Z |
Ambient
|
 |
Sum of T, F and Y; F component is zero on bare parts
|
|
Second Part of Term (With Order of Magnitude in Still Conditions
and Units)
|
| B |
Bare (proportion 0.05-0.7)
|
| C |
Clothed (proportion 0.3-0.95)
|
| D |
Diameter of body component (0.06-0.33 m)
|
| E |
Efficiency (proportion, 0.3-0.87)
|
| g |
Acceleration due to gravity (not necessarily 9.81 m/s2)
|
| H |
Heat transfer coefficient (0-8
W · m 2 · K 1)
|
| J |
Relative humidity (proportion, 0-1)
|
| K |
Conductivity (0.025-0.05
W · m 1 · K 1);
K is also a standard abbreviation for degrees Kelvin
|
| L |
Change in enthalpy of moisture evaporating at skin (2.4 MJ/kg)
|
| m |
Ordinal number of cylinder representing one hundredth of skin surface
|
| P |
Vapor pressure (0-6,500 Pa)
|
| Q |
Heat flux density ( 40 to +150 W/m2)
|
| R |
Resistance to "dry" heat flow or "R" factor (0-0.3 m2 · K · W 1)
|
| S |
Wind speed at person (0, normally, to 0.4 m/s when fan used)
|
| S10 |
Wind speed at anemometer 10 m above ground
|
| T |
Temperature (20-55°C; or 293-328°K)
|
| U |
Radial thickness of clothing (0-0.01 m)
|
| V |
Virtual temperature (21-56°C)
|
| W |
Concentration of water vapor in air (0-29
g/m3)
|
| Z |
Resistance to moisture flow, in thermal units (0-100 m2 · Pa · W 1)
|
 |
Thermal diffusivity of air (21-24 × 10 6
m2/s)
|
 |
Coefficient of expansion (1/aYT
K 1 for air)
|
 |
Kinematic viscosity of air (15-17 × 10 6
m2/s)
|
| D |
Diffusion constant of water vapor in air
(22-26 × 10 6
m2/s)
|
| Ptot |
Total atmospheric pressure (101,350 Pa at sea level)
|
| R |
Gas constant for water vapor (467 m3 · Pa · kg 1 · K 1)
|
|
Prefixes
|
| a |
Absolute (degrees Kelvin)
|
| b |
Bare part of body
|
| c |
Clothed part of body
|
| d |
While dressing, R increasing
|
| i |
Initial value
|
| m |
Mean
|
| n |
Neutral value of
|
| s |
Saturation
|
| u |
While undressing, R diminishing
|
|
Dimensionless Numbers
|
| Gr = |
× OD3 × V × g/Y 2
(106-108)
|
| Nu = |
CH × OD/YK
(1-30)
|
| Re = |
OD × ZS/Y (not applicable in still conditions, but equivalent
to 100-600)
|
| Pr = |
/ (0.72)
|
| Sc = |
/D (0.58-0.61)
|
| St = |
R × × OD/D/L/YZ (1-28)
|
|
Designed to serve as a heat-stress index, a comfort scale and a measure
of windchill, apparent temperature (AT) derives its validity from a
wide range of measurements in many countries over the period from 1940 to 1995. Moderate extrapolation is indulged in, although
others have extended it further at the hot end of the heat index.
Because even the fittest human subjects cannot be made to endure the
more severe conditions, the paucity of data at the extremes limits
accuracy there. "Data" include such components as the ability of
persons to perspire copiously, effects of extreme wind penetration into
apparel as worn, effects of gustiness of strong winds, effect of
certain reactions to extreme cold, and the effect of the inherent
nonuniformity of sunshine on the person. As better data become
available, they will be incorporated into the scale. The AT scales, and
all conclusions reached in this paper, are applicable only within the
following limits: 1) 70 AT 55°C, or 35.1 IT 39.6°C;
2) 40 ZT 50°C;
3) ZP < 4 kPa (dew point < 29°C) and ZP < sZP; 4)
ZS < 11 m/s, i.e., ZS10 < 20 m/s;
and 5) 40 GQ 150 W/m2 of body surface.
|
| Furthermore, results are regarded as approximate if IT > 39°C, if
at any place SJ > 0.90, or if, in the triple-solution region, one
solution of the heat-balance equation gives AT > 55°C. These last
regions are included on the charts, but with dotted lines. |
A set of comparative tables encompassing the above ranges, although
showing the effect of extra radiation when GQ = 100 W/m2, is available free of charge
(steadman{at}sub.net.au). The set includes outdoor AT, equivalent
temperature, temperature-humidity index, corrected effective
temperature, wind-chill equivalent temperature, and wet-bulb globe
temperature, each covering the range for which it was claimed to be
designed; only AT covers all conditions likely to be encountered
outdoors. Parsons (8) reviews heat-stress indexes more broadly, to
include those that use measures other than temperature.
|
 |
THE STANDARD AT MODEL: A SUMMARY |
The model represents an "average" person walking outdoors, at 1.4 m/s, generating heat at 165 W/m2
in a set of environmental conditions ZT, ZP,
ZS, and GQ. Average refers
particularly to body parameters derived from Fanger's results (3) in
256 adults, representing equal numbers of men and women of various ages
in the US and Denmark. The range of activity levels and clothing
enables derivation of the variation in human thermal parameters used in
this work and elsewhere, subject to the reasonable assumption that
exogenous and endogenous heat stresses have the same effects. The model
has been applied since 1971 with minor revisions as needed.
The AT model is elaborated from the work of Höschele (4). It
integrates physiological factors in the body's interior and skin
tissues, the physics of the clothing and internal air layers covering
part of the body, and the meteorological factors in the environment.
The last three factors, ZP, ZS, and
GQ, have a combined effect that is added to the dry-bulb temperature ZT
and expressed as AT3 ("in sunlight"). The level of AT, i.e., the
number of the three secondary parameters used in determining AT, is the
numeral after AT.
The scale is established by setting GQ = 0, ZS at a level due only to the
person's movement (1.4 m/s) and zero external wind speed, and ZP at a
neutral level nZP (12), given by
as
in most of the present paper. This corresponds to the same vapor
concentration as at ZJ = 0.65, ZT = 20, the conditions specified for
temperate-zone textile-testing laboratories.
In an evaluaton of AT, steady-state conditions are used, with the body
losing heat at the same rate as it is produced metabolically. This
steady state does not imply thermal comfort, except when IT
37°C. Contrary to a view that appears occasionally in the literature, AT, unlike effective temperature, with the latter's base
of ZJ = 0.5, is based on absolute, not relative, humidity. Tables show
ZJ as a concession to convention and to simplify application.
In an application, if the clothing requirement for 30°C, for
example, is obtained at these neutral or base levels, any other set of
conditions calling for the same insulation has an AT of 30°C.
Another paper (14) quantifies four reflex and seven conscious ways in
which the person regulates heat loss. Moreover, breathing, a mechanism
for regulating heat loss for some other mammals, is a part of
convective and evaporative heat exchange and is proportional to MQ in
humans. The lungs function as a recuperative heat and moisture
exchanger having 94% efficiency,
giving
|
(1)
|
Of the four ambient variables, breathing heat loss depends only on ZT
and ZP, and the evaporative component is the larger when ZT >
40°C. Total heat loss by breathing, VQ, accounts for as
little as 3% of heat loss in hot or humid, and as much as 12% in
cold, conditions at all activity levels.
In an unbiased scale, such as AT, effects of humidity, wind, and extra
radiation can be positive, zero, or negative, although warming effects
of wind are rare and slight. AT is obtained in two ways: by fitting
values of FU (a measure of the amount of clothing needed) and of IT (a
measure of physiological response) to the "neutral" ZT values.
The AT values are quintic curve fits, having SDs in both calibration
and validation <0.09 K. If the two values, which always differ by
<1 K, are denoted by AT' and AT'', then AT = PC × AT' + PB × AT''.
Conventional AT has an approximately one-to-one correspondence with IT,
IP, TR, FR, FU, TZ, FZ, PC, and
PB. Curve fitting is the smallest of
eight sources of error inherent in the measurement and evaluation of
the three levels of AT and the components. Along with two others that
are derived from the effects of rounding off measured relative humidity
and cloud cover in Australian official data, nine sources of error are
quantified and summed in a table available free of charge from the
author. Under less favorable conditions, for example, a value of AT3 is
expressed ±1.1 K, AT1 is ±0.7 K, and the effect of wind is
±0.6 K, provided that ZT is measured to ±0.1 and wet-bulb to
±0.2 K.
Of the four independent variables, ZT is the most important, although
there are conditions where it over- or underestimates the effect of
weather, even climatic averages, on a person by >10 K. Although AT3
takes account of all four, some users find it useful to have simpler
measures. If only ZT and ZP are evaluated, as in the US heat index, the
effect of humidity, for which a universal 95% confidence interval is
approximately
4 to +5 K, is obtained by subtracting the dry-bulb
temperature ZT from the "indoor" AT1. Introducing wind speed at
the person gives a second ("outdoor") level, AT2, hence the
effect of wind, AT2
AT1, in an analogous range
8 to 0 K. This difference, the windchill, is more moderate than values presented
by the media when
ZS10 < 19 m/s
or ZS < 10 m/s. The popular scale,
however, dangerously underestimates windchill at higher wind speeds,
and efforts are being made to replace it (e.g., Ref. 9).
Complexities of estimating extra radiation GQ are explained elsewhere
(12). When applied to solar radiation, it has four components, taken as
acting evenly on the person: direct (typically 0-100
W/m2 of total body surface);
diffuse (0-40); terrestrial (0-30); and long-wave outgoing
(
30 to 0). In total, values are
30
GQ
120 for the walking human and
40
GQ
200 for quadrupeds or a
prone, sunbathing person. When GQ is introduced, AT3 is
obtained, giving an effect of extra radiation, AT3
AT2, usually
in the range
2 K on a calm clear night to +6 K on the walking
person exposed to sunshine at altitude angles near 50°. A 95%
universal population-weighted interval for the combined effect, i.e.,
the amount by which AT3 as sensed by an active person exceeds ZT, is
10 to +9 K.
In contrast to some older systems, which either assume or ignore values
for YR, ZJ, YZ, IT, IP, ST, and their derivatives, all the key
physiological parameters are evaluated as part of the process of
deriving AT. Other indexes, if clothing is considered at all, usually
assume PC = EE = GE = 1. In the popular windchill scale, VQ = EQ = PC = 0. The AT printout can be set up
to provide as many as 20 physiological parameters and 6 clothing
variables. As AT changes, the corresponding change in IT is only 5 (cool) -10% (warm conditions) as great and is ignored by most workers in human biometeorology. IT is both worthy of inclusion and
indirectly important because it is the key stimulus to the other 10 regulatory mechanisms that come into play.
Quantitative Aspects
Most of the relationships that describe a person's thermal reactions
and relationships derive from an eclectic scavenging of the literature
and are updated as new data become available.
In many publications, even contemporary ones,
EQ is calculated (with perfect
evaporative efficiency assumed) to express the discrepancy between two
other heat flows and sometimes comes up negative, and then is taken as
zero, as if the person were impermeable to "active" sweat. If it
exceeds
"Emax," a
fresh set of assumptions is engaged. The AT system does not introduce
such immeasurable terms as wetted area of skin or wetness factor of
clothing, although SJ and UJ can be evaluated. Because accuracy of the
AT scale cannot be guaranteed if SJ > 0.90, it is commonly checked.
Only 80% of the surface is exposed to full convection and 72% to full
radiation, because heat transfer of much of the surface, especially of
the limbs, is limited by other parts.
Estimation of physiological parameters is based partly on the work of
Fanger (3). Clothing parameters are based on physical properties of
average fabric ensembles. To provide a seamless analysis, i.e., with no
gap or overlap between winter and summer scales, these ensembles are
qualitatively the same for hot and cold conditions, varying in
thickness and coverage, but the effects of temperature (including the
effect of extra radiation on clothing temperature) and wind
penetration on conductivity are allowed for (Eqs.
12 and 12a, below).
Figure 1 illustrates moisture flow from the
body's core to the environment. The potential is vapor pressure, and
the three variable resistances are in series or additive. The flow
follows Ohm's law, even though the flow is in liquid form through TZ
and vapor through FZ and YZ. More important than the flow is the
evaporation at the skin surface; for each gram that evaporates, a
latent heat of 2,400 J is abstracted from both sides of the skin. This
enthalpy change refers to the latent heat of evaporation at ST and the change of sensible heat as moisture temperature changes from IT to ST.
It amounts to 2,400 ± 12 kJ/kg in all the conditions considered. Because the system is thermodynamically closed, isothermal heat lost in
vapor expansion can be ignored (6).
This reasoning is now applied to heat transfer in Fig.
2. Sweat evaporates at the skin, and extra
radiation is absorbed at the surface, which has 0.7 absorptivity and
0.97 emissivity. Ohm's law still applies but is combined with
Kirchhoff's law at the junctions. TQ and
EQ are always in the direction shown,
but the other arrows in Fig. 2 may reverse, especially in the hot
conditions that are the focus of this paper. To obtain steady state and
to clarify TQ
|
(2)
|
The following equations are expressions of Kirchhoff's law and apply
to the whole body, or to each of the body elements into which it is
divided: at the skin
|
(3)
|
at
the outer clothing surface
|
(4)
|
at bare
parts
and
|
(5)
|
Combining
Eqs. 3 and 4 shows Eq. 5 to be valid also for clothed parts.
The three temperature differences can be expressed as
and,
where applicable
It follows by addition that the evaporative efficiency
|
(6)
|
and
the efficiency with which absorbed extra radiation, positive or
negative, adds to the person's heat load (to engineers, the
"inward-flowing fraction") is
|
(7)
|
When a weighted average over the whole body surface in steady state is
obtained, representative values are 0.7
EE
0.85 and 0.3
GE
0.7, averaged over the walking person. Both efficiencies, especially GE, tend to diminish as wind speed increases, causing a
reduction in YR. Re (the ratio of inertial to viscous forces) > 10,000 almost always, in sharp contrast to the free-convection scenario
(see the GLOSSARY).
Many results are conveniently portrayed on psychrometric charts, such
as Fig. 3, which shows isotherms of AT1. In
two dimensions, only two independent variables can be displayed. The
use of three-dimensional graphs has been tried, but with such a loss of
clarity and ease of measurement by the reader that contour charts of
the type used here, for which there is no satisfactory available
software, continue to be drawn by hand, for the same reason as isobars
on weather maps are drawn by hand. Figure 3 is more commonly presented
as a table, often in Fahrenheit temperatures, as the heat index. Wet-bulb globe thermometer (WBGT) readings provide one of the few other
four-factor measures of heat stress. Although WGBT is insensitive to
wind, oversensitive to humidity, inappropriate in freezing
temperatures, and gives results some 20% below the perceived
temperature, it correlates well with AT (SD about linear regression
line = 2.0 K in the range defined in SCOPE AND
CONSTRAINTS, with the further restraint ZT > 0) but
has to be adjusted upward to give a realistic impression of
temperature. The conversion AT = 1.25 WBGT is a useful one in
above-freezing conditions.

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|
Fig. 3.
Heat index for walking person. ZS = 1.4; GQ = 0; MQ = 165. Solid lines, effect of humidity (K); dashed
lines, apparent temperature (AT).
|
|
The human model has a mass of 72 kg, a volume of 73 liters, and a
surface area of 1.9 m2. These
values are not critical in the relative assessment of the four
independent variables ZT, ZP, ZS, and
GQ. Applying standard engineering reasoning gives a mean effective
diameter (mSD) for the sides of a long cylinder, of 4 × 0.073/1.9 = 0.17 m. The separate variable diameters for the bare and clothed
parts are obtained, with the significant diameter for the clothed parts
being OD = SD + 2FU. The component bare and clothed diameters are not
detailed here, because a more refined analysis of body dimensions was
used in the free-convective scenarios. The AT scale is not applicable to infants, who have lower significant diameter SD and, especially if
premature, lower TZ.
As the body's core temperature changes, its vapor pressure changes
appreciably. Saturation vapor pressure is given by
As
IJ = 0.9 (1)
|
(8)
|
In view of the limit that Eq. 8
imposes on skin humidity of both clothed and bare parts, any result in
which SJ > 0.90 at the wettest part of the skin is suspect and is
possibly associated with free liquid on, or even dripping off, wetter
parts of the skin. Such results are denoted by dotted lines (figures)
and suffixes in the author's tables. A necessary but insufficient
condition for this outcome at the metabolic levels considered here is
ZP > 2,400 Pa. The internal temperature, which is used as a measure of AT, is related to the body's mean thermal resistance by
|
(9)
|
[In cold conditions, the erythemal effect limits bTR to a maximum
of 0.053 to mitigate frostbite (7)]. Such conditions are beyond
the scope of this paper, which will address comfort and heat stress,
where TR < 0.048, but are included in the comparative values in
SCOPE AND CONSTRAINTS.
Under all conditions, regardless of whether moisture transfer by
perspiration is called "sensible," "insensible," or a
combination
|
(10)
|
Observation of persons' thermally appropriate clothing indicates
|
(11)
|
Conductivity of the clothing ensemble is given by
|
(12)
|
This conductivity is well above the corresponding value for still
air, 0.0240 + ZT/13,000, because of the higher conductivity of fibers
but also because of internal radiation and air motion due to the
person's movement. An earlier paper (11) shows the conversion of any
anemometer wind speed ZS10 to ZS for
a moving person when all directions of movement relative to wind
direction are equally likely.
The corresponding clothing resistance to moisture, being more sensitive
to wind penetration, is given by
|
(13)
|
The clothing thickness, which is used as a second measure of AT, is
given by
and the
proportion of the body's surface left unclothed by
|
(14)
|
The heat balance formula equates the heat production, in the absence of
net useful work, to the "dry" and evaporative heat losses by
breathing, and through the bare and clothed parts of the
body
|
(15)
|
The surface resistance YR, referring to the parallel flows of
convective and radiative heat from the surface to the environment, adjusted for clothing thickness but referred always to the skin surface area, is given by
The convective dry heat-transfer coefficient for 80% of full
convection is derived by fitting linear relationships to
YK and Y
for air at 60% saturation
as functions of YT, substituting, because air is a perfect gas, 1/aYT
for
, and applying Nu = 0.22 Pr0.31
Re0.58 for the range of wind
speeds encountered outdoors
|
(16)
|
The radiative coefficient for 72% of full radiation is obtained by
factorizing the equation describing radiant exchange between UT and ZT
for skin and clothing emissivities of 0.97
|
(17)
|
If the radiant temperature of the surroundings differs from that of the
ambient air, the difference is expressed as extra radiation. Another
publication (13) shows how extra radiation is related to operant
temperature and mean radiant temperature. Equation 15 is solved iteratively by entering an initial value of TR to find a trial value of the right-hand side (RHS) and repeatedly adjusting TR by (RHS
MQ)
(TR/1.6)1.6 until the two sides of
Eq. 15 differ by <0.02
W/m2. To avoid a fluke solution
before the parameters have stabilized, this condition is prescribed for
two successive iterations. More than 30 iterations are seldom needed.
Corresponding values of FU and IT are substituted into curve fits to
get AT.
Trials in which Reynolds' analogy (10) was applied to the
dimensionless numbers (see the
GLOSSARY) verified that the
psychrometric constant is close to 61 Pa/K over the range of conditions
pertinent to the free-convective anomaly, although as low as 59 in
saturated cool conditions. The analogous resistance to moisture
transfer is
|
(18)
|
In the outdoor conditions in which the heat index is determined, FR is
commonly the highest dry resistance and TZ is the highest
"moist" resistance. The effect is to keep the skin warm but dry.
The rest of this paper will examine stagnant or still conditions where
YR and especially YZ are on the same order of magnitude as the body and
clothing resistances. In still conditions, YZ sometimes accounts for
more than one-half of
Z and becomes the limiting factor in moisture transfer.
 |
TOWARD AN AT SCALE FOR INDOOR CONDITIONS |
There is much interest, especially from industrial engineers and
medical specialists, in heat stress associated with indoor work. In the
absence of much air movement, a person is more sensitive to extra
radiation; when the person is resting or less active than a walking
person, lower perspiration renders the person generally less sensitive
to humidity than in the outdoor AT model. Partly, too, for forensic
purposes and in sports medicine, an AT scale encompassing low air
movement was needed. Work began in 1985 on this apparently routine
task, with the intention of publishing scales at various levels of GQ
within a year. Unexpected and puzzling complications soon arose. They
led to refinements, such as the division of the body into 100 equal
areas having different "hydraulic" or effective diameters.
The analysis performed here refers to the most stagnant conditions that
a person is likely to encounter, and the reader's professional
judgment is needed in interpolating between the outdoor AT scale and
the "still" scale (see Evaluation). Potential
applications of "phone-booth conditions," in which purely free
convection is approached, are to such scenarios as the following:
1) a person working at a furnace or
oven, or in a confined space, e.g., an attic;
2) a heat-stressed collapsed
athlete; 3) children and pets in
parked cars; 4) animals closely
confined, such as battery hens and live-animal cargoes;
5) a person sunbathing in the
absence of wind; and 6) a person
engaged in underground mining.
Because the anomaly occurs at AT levels at which the sustained use of
human subjects would be forbidden, there is scant experimental evidence
to support quantitatively the conclusions reached theoretically in this
paper. In view of the heat fatalities that occur indoors, especially in
heat waves and occupationally, the prompt publication of an unconfirmed
and partly unconfirmable set of results is better than a large gap in
our quantitative knowledge. Refinements to the theory should obviate
the need for any human experiments in such distressing conditions.
However, a few pieces of anecdotal evidence pointing to
"superheating" in still conditions have come to the author's
attention and have been edited to remove some colorful adjectives and
nonstandard units: 1) "I felt
cool enough until I collapsed." (Runner in "fun run" at AT
35°C); 2) "It must be
60°C in that attic." [Electrician. Measurement showed 41°C with ~40 W/m2 of extra
radiation (AT3
47)]. Later it will become clear that he was
in the middle of the free-convective anomaly. An advertisement for
attic fans claims an attic temperature of 70°C;
3) "It got hot each time I went
down the straight," i.e., when the tailwind had the same velocity as
the athlete. (Walker in 10,000-m track event with ZT
33°C,
conventional AT
38°C); and
4) "Once it goes above
~40°C, you don't notice much difference." (Expatriate manager
working in Dubai; the author would argue that the claim is true only in
the range 41
ZT
45°C).
Alternative Models
Although the human model described here and in the references was
modified appropriately for still conditions, it was apparently intractable in the early stages of this work. Some alternatives were
developed, e.g., having different metabolic levels, different formulas
for clothing insulation (Eq. 18),
and different body sizes. One version was nude; i.e., only the four
reflex, but not the seven conscious, thermoregulatory mechanisms were
allowed. The criterion for terminating iterations, a difference of
0.002 W/m2 between the sides of
the heat-balance equation, was narrowed successively, without
improvement. In every instance, the problem of multiple solutions
somewhere in an anomalous region became evident and persisted. Finally,
the present model, describing as realistically as possible the
person's reaction to heat stress, whether due to temperature,
humidity, extra radiation or stagnation, was refined and adopted.
Clothing Requirements
Because there is a one-to-one correspondence between AT and FU, the
effects of increasing the resistances FR and TR are described. On those
parts (cylinders) that are clothed, the rings are numbered from 99, corresponding to the hips, down to the least clothed, the remainder
being bare (Fig. 4). At ZT = 40°C, 43 of the rings are bare and the other 57 progressively but lightly
clothed. Although TR, by virtue of its derivation as a harmonic mean,
is uniform for the purpose of analysis, the resistance offered by the
mth annular clothing layer is
|
(11a)
|
Reflecting the absence of a bellows effect (5), the clothing
conductivity is lower
|
(12a)
|
Corresponding to a clothing thickness FU = FR × FK, where FR is the logarithmic mean
resistance in the annulus, the amount by which the clothing increases
the radius is
|
(19)
|
In
general, OD = SD + 2FD.
Although FZ is usually a small part of
Z, the effects of increasing
FR are the following: 1) generally
to reduce the outward dry flow of heat when ZT
36;
2) to reduce inward dry flow when ZT
38; 3) to increase
EE slightly, especially important in
conditions when EQ > MQ;
4) to reduce GE, thereby reducing
inward-flowing solar and other radiation if GQ > 0;
5) to increase
PC, increasing EE further;
6) to increase surface area, hence
slightly reducing YR and YZ, which are referred to skin area;
7) to impede moisture vapor flow
only slightly; and 8) to bring UT
closer to ZT, hence reducing CH and
raising YZ, often the chief effect.
These sometimes conflicting effects help explain why increasing FR
sometimes tends to increase heat loss, but only when UV ~ ZV
and when YR and YZ are dominant resistances. These conditions were
found to appear only when MQ < 100 and low CH < 2.2.
Peculiarities of Free Convection
Natural or free convection occurs whenever there is a density gradient
in a fluid. In particular, the density of an air-water vapor mixture
next to the body's surface generally differs from that of the
surrounding air and/or water vapor. The potential controlling free
convection from or to the body is not exactly temperature, but virtual
temperature. Because the molecular weight of water vapor is 18, compared with 29 for dry air, the virtual temperature is given by
|
(20)
|
where
Ptot refers to total atmospheric
pressure, 101,350 Pa at sea level, the only value considered in this
work. The net effect of air pressure on AT of a person walking outdoors
has been found to be slight (11). The author has not managed to find
enough accurate data about the effect of density on the properties of
air and water vapor, particularly K,
, and D, to extend the indoor
analysis to higher altitudes. Because UP is usually some kilopascals
above ZP, the virtual-temperature excess, UV
ZV, is typically
3-4 degrees above UT
ZT. If this were not so, e.g., if
water had a molecular weight similar to that of air, the onset of the
anomaly would be at a ZT 3-4 degrees cooler, and the problem of
superheating would be more common. That it is not can be ascribed to
yet another remarkable property of water. The direct effect of
diminished convection on dry heat transfer is not serious, because
there is always ample radiation; indeed, low convection is helpful, in
a direct sense, when ZT > UT. The problem is in the indirect effect
of low convection on the removal of moisture vapor.
All values of Gr in this work are below
108 and correspond to laminar
flow. Gr is physically the ratio of buoyancy to the square of viscous
forces. At this level, convective heat transfer from cylinders having
vertical axes with 80% of full exchange is described by Nu = 0.44 (Gr × Pr)0.25. From Reynolds'
analogy, St = 0.44 (Gr × Sc)0.25. Because Sc
Pr, St for
free convection is ~5% less than Nu in air. Nu, in physical terms,
is the ratio of the significant length (OD, here) to the thickness of
the equivalent boundary layer of still air.
To improve the precision of the analysis, especially at the very low
values of Nu where the anomaly is most apparent, the conventional
formulas for free convection were split into a conductive part (with Nu = 1) and a remaining convective part. The small conduction has as its
potential UT
ZT and its equivalent coefficient is
|
(21)
|
Substituting the relevant physical properties for the free-convective
part gives
|
(22)
|
In practice this parameter is highly variable in an iterative solution
if |UV
ZV| is near zero. In the program it is damped by a factor of nine to avoid instability, at the cost of generally slower convergence to the final value.
Pure natural convection from the living person is impossible even if
there is complete protection from ambient air movement, including that
due to heating, ventilating, and air conditioning systems. Involuntary
movements such as breathing correspond to a minimum relative movement
of ZS = 3 mm/s, averaged over the surface. At this speed, Re < 100, and forced convection, similarly over 80% of the area, is described by Nu = 0.32 Pr0.31 × Re0.5. This small component
translates to
|
(23)
|
KQ and the much larger
RQ are heat flows in parallel or
antiparallel with CQ, but the
composition of CQ is more complex. LQ, especially in the "fan"
scenario, is essentially horizontal, whereas NQ is vertical, upward or
downward, allowing the heat flows to be composed as vectors. Figure
5, averaged over all 100 cylinders, gives a
clearer picture of the convective flows as ZT changes, positive values
of Q corresponding to the outward flow of heat.

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Fig. 5.
Components of convection in neutral conditions.
A-D, zones of convection. See text for
details.
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In the conventional literature, only the larger of NQ or
LQ is considered, leading to
substantial errors in some of the conditions considered here and
rendering continuous slopes in the scales impossible. Because the
coefficients are at right angles, CH, on which YZ depends, is always given by
|
(24)
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The determination of CQ is less
simple. Only when NQ and LQ > 0, CQ =
(Fig. 5, zone A,
left of ZT = 35.5, at which point
LQ = 0 and CQ = NQ). If both components are
negative, CQ = 
(zone B,
right of ZT = 40.6, at which point NQ = 0 and CQ = LQ). The scenario
LQ > 0, NQ < 0 is a null set in
human biometeorology, but if LQ < 0, NQ > 0, then, if NQ > |LQ|,
CQ =
(zone C); but if NQ < |LQ|,
CQ = 
(zone D). At the boundary of these
last regions, there is no net convection,
CH is minimal and corresponds to the
highest YZ = 1/(CH + KH) for that cylinder (as high as 90 for 1 cylinder), with mYZ never >52 in the anomalous region, but
<30 elsewhere.
Evaluation
The above may be summarized in the effects of curtailing
CQ when UV
ZV. The effect on dry
heat flow is slight because CQ < RQ in all still conditions. However,
because radiation has no analog in mass transfer, the correspondingly
low moisture transfer from the surface becomes the chief source of heat
stress in the anomalous region. Although the focus is on conditions
where YZ is very high because of low air movement, convection (in its
classic sense) to remove vapor is never absent even in phone-booth
conditions because of 1) the
involuntary body movements (TOWARD AN AT SCALE FOR
INDOOR CONDITIONS);
2) the small conductive component
(Peculiarities of Free Convection);
and 3) variation in body diameter
and surface temperature; even when one cylinder is surrounded by
stagnation, other surface virtual temperatures, UV, are, in general,
hotter and cooler than ZV; this is the chief source of relief from
superheating due to stagnation.
This work uses a resting level of MQ = 60 W/m2 to provide a continuous
scale, a near-minimal level for a standing person. MQ would be greater
if the person were well enough to resist metabolically either extreme
cold or extreme heat, and in an active person who had just collapsed.
Another modification is a slight one, in recognition of the
notion that the lower activity level affects
vasoconstriction more than it affects body temperature
|
(9a)
|
In the original AT model, the person's surface is divided into only
clothed and bare parts. In the present work, erratic results conduced
refinement of the model, to have five different thicknesses of clothing
on the clothed parts. This was, in turn, superseded by a model
illustrated in Fig. 4. As before, cylinder theory opens access to a
body of heat-transfer literature.
The iterative procedure is more complicated. The procedure described in
Quantitative Aspects is merely an
outer framework within which an inner iteration first occurs. Beginning
with initial values of the 100 surface temperatures
(m has values from 0 to 99) given by
each
value of UT is changed iteratively until Kirchhoff's law is obeyed at
the surface (Fig. 2); i.e., both sides of Eq. 3 for the clothed parts and Eq. 5 for the bare parts agree within 0.002 W/m2.
After this pair of equalities is achieved for all 100 rings, an
adjustment is made to TR; this more sensitive adjustment is
TR = (RHS
MQ) × (TR/2.6)2.8. Typically, several
hundred iterations are needed to satisfy Eq. 15 to within 0.002 W/m2. The program, in C++ and run
on a personal computer, is written to stop if it reaches 8,000 iterations, and results of the last few iterations are then inspected.
If steady state is being approached, i.e., the differences are
consistently <0.01 W/m2 and
falling, an approximate result is recorded. If there is oscillation, the program is modified until convergence occurs. In over 99% of
cases, a result is obtained with <8,000 iterations, the remainder being all in the anomalous region. A commercial user of the program has
reported no stopped evaluations in meteorological work. In the absence
of wind, and its penetration into clothing, substitution of either IT
or FU would yield the same value of AT, so only FU is used.
Offsetting this simplification is the finding, to be explained in more
detail in Resistance in the Anolamous
Range, that there are sometimes three solutions to
Eq. 15. The central one, alone, is
less stable and calls for either more or less thermal resistance until
another steady state is reached. To find these two values, one begins
with a value of iTR that must be above the higher result, and another
iTR that must be below the lower result, and makes the iterative
adjustment of the previous paragraph small, to avoid jumping from the
domain of one solution to that of the other. The two extreme solutions
for TR (and for all the incidental physiological and clothing
parameters) are then averaged and substituted into the curve fit of TR
against ZT at the neutral levels of ZP and GQ as before, except that
ZS is input only as 0.003 in the
free-convection scenario. The two initial values, developed by trial
and error to ensure that they were always higher and lower,
respectively, than the final values, are
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and
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This curve fit is achieved by omitting results in the anomalous region,
which is not automatically or objectively defined. Depending
secondarily on ZP and GQ, the anomaly peaks at ~41°C and is
evident in the range 36
ZP
45°C when ZP and GP
have neutral levels, i.e., levels used in preparing the curve of best fit. Accordingly, input values for preparing this fit were in the
ranges 20
ZT
34 and 46
ZT
57°C. The curve fit was extended beyond 55°C because an earlier fit ending at 55°C had a regression, long undetected, in the relationship between
X (defined below) and AT; it was
removed by a minor change to Eq. 17.
This yielded the general equation
|
(25)
|
where X = ln (140 FD99) and
FD99 is the thickness of clothing
on the thickest and most clothed ring; the multiplier 140 is chosen to
minimize the coefficients in Eq. 25.
SE of the curve fit is 0.09 K. This smooth curve is then applied to the
whole range 22
AT
55°C, although it gives results
0.20 and
0.09 K high when validated at 34 and 46°C,
respectively, showing evidence of the anomaly even at the fringes.
Resistance in the Anomalous Range
To illustrate the complications of the still scenario, especially in
the triple-solution range, a trial was done in which selected values of
TR were evaluated for their effect on heat loss. "Their" includes
a syndrome of concomitant parameters, namely, TR, FR, TZ, FZ,
PB, and OD, and, less directly, IT,
IP, YR, and YZ. The total heat loss in this trial, VQ + TQ, was not set
equal to MQ but treated as the dependent variable, with GQ = 0 and ZP held at the neutral levels corresponding to ZW = 12. The effects on heat loss Q are described in Fig.
6.
When ZT
40 and ZT
45°C, the results are "normal",
i.e., increasing R causes diminishing Q. But the curves of intermediate temperatures show inflexions and regions where increasing R also increases Q. These are places where UV
ZV, at least at many values
of ODm, and some of the usually
minor effects in Alternative Models
predominate. A further requirement for a triple solution is that the
line MQ should intersect the curve in three places. That this can
happen only at fairly low MQ explains why only stationary people are
sensitive to the superheating. At least as important is the movement
associated with higher levels of activity, which provides forced
convection at a much higher rate than that due to breathing. The
curves also show that appreciable displacement of resistance from
the middle solution is likely to lead to a new steady state
corresponding to the highest or lowest resistance, hence the use only
of those two, uFD99 and dFD99, which are first averaged to
determine AT from Eq. 25.
 |
RESULTS |
Advantages of the theoretical approach are that harsh and dangerous
conditions can be safely explored; hundreds of subjects can be averaged
without employing any; no time is wasted in bringing subjects to steady
state; complete consistency is ensured in comparisons; and an almost
unlimited number of conditions can be examined quickly, e.g., for
preparing charts. Although the chief emphasis is on AT, the output file
can include any other variables of interest, such as IT, bST, cST, UT,
SP, SJ, UV, TR, FR, FU, CH,
RH, YR, TZ, YZ,
PC, or
PB, VQ/MQ, OD/SD (the "clothing
factor"), TQ, EQ, EE, and GE, usually averaged over the
whole person. It is worth repeating that many publications shed little
light on these subsidiary parameters; indeed, they are treated in one
of two ways: assumed or ignored. As an example, the popular US
windchill scale sets ST = UT = 33°C, then declares in
places, "Exposed flesh freezes." The logical process makes it
easy to obtain by subtraction in the following order:
1) effect of humidity (by using
conventional outdoor AT1
ZT; solid lines in Fig. 3);
2) effect of stagnation and
inactivity (Fig. 7); and
3) effect of extra radiation.

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Fig. 7.
Effect of stagnation and inactivity, illustrating free-convective
anomaly. Dashed lines, AT in still conditions; solid lines,
effect of stagnation and inactivity. GQ = 0.
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The following observations are made on the above three points. The
still AT scale confounds the effects of humidity, stagnation, and
inactivity. The first is already available, at least for the active
person, relative to the base humidity ZW = 12. The other two are not
readily separable, because any level of steady activity having MQ
60 is likely to be accompanied by movement. The chief caution is that,
owing to the lower rate of activity and especially perspiration, the
resting person is less sensitive to humidity changes, especially when
ZT < IT. Hence, at the lower temperatures considered here, near ZT = 28, the person has a relative sensation of AT as much as 3 K warmer as
ZP
4,000. When ZT
38 and sweating becomes copious, the
differences can be fairly interpreted as due mostly to stagnation.
Inner and Outer Solutions in Anomalous Region
Given the inflexions in the anomalous region, there are necessarily
some discontinuities when ZT, ZP, GQ, or any combination changes.
Reverting to the analysis where TR and its derivatives are dependent
variables and total heat loss = MQ, we examine the effect of gradually
increasing AT when ZT > IT and refer to Fig. 7. At moderate levels,
say 40°C, depending secondarily on GQ and ZP (which are held
constant at their neutral levels for this exercise), the person reduces
TR (vasodilatation), TZ (sweating), FR, and FZ (thinner clothing) to
offset the higher YR and especially YZ; PC also falls. Outside the anomalous
region, and sometimes within it, this effects steady state, i.e., TQ + VQ = MQ. But these changes also reduce (UT
ZT), thus increasing
YZ to a point where a steady state cannot be reached until UT > ZT by
enough to lower YZ to a point where evaporation offsets the now
substantial inward flow of heat, and another steady state is
established at a lower value of TR or a higher value of IT. The
spectrum of conditions over the 100 rings limits the scope of triple
solutions. The differences between the two outer values, uAT
dAT, are shown in Fig. 8 for all the
scenarios where they exist when GQ = 0.
The most extreme example of this discontinuity to be found when GQ = 0 was at ZT = 43, ZP = 2,663, when uTR = 0.02538, giving uAT = 51.61 and
umYZ = 39.9. The slightest increase in AT, whether due to ZT, ZP, or
GQ, upsets this unstable equilibrium. In this instance ZP was changed
incrementally to 2,664, with umYZ now 42.8 and uTR now 0.02430, corresponding to uAT = 53.97. There was little change in dAT = 55.59 at both vapor pressures, so that AT, on the basis of the mean
of uTR and dTR, showed a step change from 53.46 to 54.72. Such steps
are all <1 K when AT < 50, and have little effect on the contour
charts, except that in the AT model, there is no exact value of ZP
corresponding to the contour AT = 55 when ZT = 44.
Within the loosely defined anomalous region, the region where dAT
uAT is clear (Fig. 8), although sensitive to the scenario's specifications. Conditions where (uAT
dAT) > 1 K are
relatively rare, but there is some uncertainty about the vortex of the
anomaly, because of the three solutions, the high skin humidity, and AT (Fig. 7, which includes the same conditions). The numbers shown in Fig.
8 refer to the differences between the two extreme solutions.
Figure 7 illustrates the regions where relief from stagnation causes AT
to fall despite an increase in ZT. There are a few places, with ZT ~ 41, where an increase in ZP causes a slight reduction in AT, but no
instances were found where increasing extra radiation lowered AT,
although microscale reductions could conceivably occur in the anomalous
region for a small change in GQ. Only steps of 20 W/m2 were investigated.
An interesting corollary observation was that, although most triple
solutions are associated with slight absolute values of GQ, they
occurred when GQ = 60, ZT > 47, but in reverse, i.e., apparently because of the protection that the body's resistances give
to extra radiation, uAT > dAT in this very limited and oppressive range, where an experimental check of the result would be hazardous.
Fundamental Findings
Figure 7 showed the effect of stagnation for the inactive person. The
anomaly is clearly greatest around ZT = 42 and increases with
increasing ZP, when removal of perspiration becomes critical. The rapid
approach to the limit AT = 55 limits our insight into this region. At
high humidities when 38
ZT
45, possible skin wetness, and
hysteresis between the two solutions, reduce certainty.
The physical conditions are examined more closely in a series of
parameters graphs, which refer only to "neutral conditions," corresponding to GQ = 0 and the neutral vapor pressures shown by the
zero line in Fig. 3, and described by ZW = 12. Figure
9 examines the changes in temperatures,
averaged over the body when necessary, at the various nodes of Fig. 2.
The anomaly, the vertical difference between the AT curve and the
dashed line showing ZT, peaks at ZT = 41. There is a slight cooling
effect as ZT increases further, until increasing inward heat flow adds
to AT. With a range in ZT of 22 K, the sensitivities of the other
temperatures to change in ambient temperature are 0.09 for ZT, 0.13 for
mST, and 0.35 for mUT. The last becomes so great at high ZT that it exceeds ST, even though the two are identical on the predominant bare
parts of the body, i.e., heat is transferred inward through clothes.
mST < IT always, as most of the body's heat output must be conducted
through the skin. [Observations of poikilotherms (cold-blooded
animals) and, occasionally, of panting quadrupeds have shown
measurements of ST > IT in extreme conditions.]
There is no crossing in the lines of Fig.
10, which shows corresponding vapor
pressures. These curves illustrate the heat stress of the anomalous
region, where intense perspiration occurs. As more of the surface is
bared, the lines of UP and UT approach those of SP and ST,
respectively. Perspiration to compensate for stagnation is such that,
at least when ZP = nZP, UP reaches a maximum at ZT = 42. Figures 8 and
9 can be used to derive approximately the corresponding mean values of
V and J (not illustrated).
Figure 10 illustrates thermal resistance cumulatively, the total
resistance to heat flow being a major controlling factor. As ZT
increases, so does RH, offsetting the
reduction in CH as UV approaches ZV.
After the anomalous region, both RH
and CH increase, helping to make the
consequent "fall" in most parameters steeper than the rise in the
approximate range 35
ZT
41. These
resistances are arithmetic, not harmonic, averages of the 100 rings,
and in general differ from values obtained by dividing the mean heat flow (TQ, FQ, or YQ) into the mean temperature difference.
Figure 11 is the corresponding depiction
of resistances to moisture transfer. Because of its superficial
similarity to Fig. 12, its peculiarities
are described. Although TZ is the controlling resistance in cool and
moderate conditions, and FZ of normal clothing is always small,
the rise of mYZ to >40 when UV
ZV limits sweat dissipation. In
the absence of radiation,
Z, unlike 