Bioheat Transfer Equation with Protective Layer

Abstract

The human thermal comfort is the state of mind, which is affected not only by the physical and body’s internal physiological phenomena but also by the clothing properties such as thermal resistance of clothing, clothing insulation, clothing area factor, air insulation, and relative humidity. In this work, we extend the one-dimensional Pennes’ bioheat transfer equation by adding the protective clothing layer. The transient temperature profile with the clothing layer at the different time steps has been carried out using a fully implicit Finite Difference (FD) Scheme with interface condition between body and clothes. Numerically computed results are bound to agree that the clothing insulation and air insulation provide better comfort and keep the body at the thermal equilibrium position. The graphical representation of the results also verifies the effectiveness and utility of the proposed model.