Hm. Lee et al., DEVELOPMENT OF A TEMPERATURE CONTROL PROCEDURE FOR A ROOM AIR-CONDITIONER USING THE CONCEPT OF JUST NOTICEABLE DIFFERENCE (JND) IN THERMAL SENSATION, International journal of industrial ergonomics, 22(3), 1998, pp. 207-216
Temperature control for an air-conditioner is an important design vari
able. Ergonomic studies on the thermal sensation in a normal room temp
erature are relatively few while many studies are available for the th
ermal sensations in extreme warm/cold conditions. The objective of thi
s study is to find out factors which affect the cutaneous thermal sens
ations and so to propose a new cooling control procedure for an air-co
nditioner using JND (just noticeable difference) values of cutaneous t
hermal sensation. An experiment to find out JND values of cool and war
m thermal sensation was conducted using 13 subjects. Skin temperature,
corresponding room temperature and temperature change rate were measu
red using 297 thermocouples uniformly distributed in a thermo-proof ro
om. Subjective ratings on thermal sensation and thermal comfort were a
lso evaluated. JND values of cutaneous thermal sensation corresponding
to the skin, room temperature and temperature change rate were in the
range of 0.09-0.80 degrees C. Based on the result of the experiment,
a new cooling procedure which lowers the temperature rapidly above the
JND values of cool thermal sensation and maintains temperature below
the JND values of warm thermal sensation is proposed. (C) 1998 Elsevie
r Science B.V. All rights reserved.