AN INVESTIGATION ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MEAN SKIN TEMPERATURE AND THERMAL COMFORT

Abstract

The mean skin temperature (MST) has always been a key physiological data when conducting thermal comfort studies since it is said to be related to the thermal comfort level of the individual. With the skin organ playing a crucial role in our body thermoregulation system and constantly exposed to the external surrounding environment, this study shall seek to evaluate the correlation between MST and the thermal comfort level and if any of the environment factors has an influence over MST.

The data collected for this study will consist of both objective and subjective measurement to analyse the correlation between MST and thermal comfort. The findings from this paper showed that MST proved to be a useful parameter in assessing thermal comfort where in general people with MST falling within the range of 32.00 - 33.99°C are deemed to be comfortable. People with higher MST falling within the range of 33.00 - 33.99°C had also expressed their preference for more air movement and a cooler environment despite feeling comfortable with the existing thermal condition. For the influence of the environment factors on MST, a multi linear regression (MLR) was carried out however the results showed that there was no association between the four environment parameters and MST. Further studies can investigate other possible factors that influence MST aside from environment parameters