Skin temperature distribution and thermoregulatory response during prolonged seating

The presented work investigates the effect of the environmental temperature on the human thermoregulatory response during prolonged seating. The dependency of the skin temperature at a number of the body locations on the room temperature, humidity, core temperature, gender, body mass index (BMI), age and clothing level was established using multivariate regression analysis. Based on these equations skin temperature is predicted at specific points of the body. The predictive model forms a part of an automated system for temperature control of a plane cabin during long-haul flights funded by the EC. This study differs from the preceding ones in two aspects i) it is substantially larger in terms of both subject and trial numbers. ii) clothed subjects were used and the gender representation was balanced. The obtained skin temperature measurements are notably higher than previously reported. Besides this difference in the absolute value, the ranks of locations by their skin temperature and sensitivity to room temperature are in agreement with the literature. Forehead and trunk retain higher temperature, while limbs proved more sensitive to room temperature variation. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.