Parametric studies of human thermal mechanisms and measurements

A systematic methodology is proposed for mathematically quantifying the effects of measurement inaccuracies due to instrument uncertainty in a human calorimetry project. Human thermal mechanisms are poorly understood at the systems level and this study investigates the importance of these mechanisms quantitatively. The proposed methodology uses sensitivity derivatives combined with sensor accuracies to quantify the effect of each heat transfer mechanism contributing to the errors in the system equations. The method is applicable to any differentiable model to be validated by experimentation. To illustrate the methodology, two example cases, a reclining nude resting subject and a reclining clothed working subject, are analyzed. The calculated expected errors clearly suggest specific modifications.