Comparison of two different calculation principles for determining the thermal insulation of clothing

For analyzing the overall total thermal insulation of clothing ensembles (IT), international standards offer two different calculation principles, a serial and a parallel model, which result in different values of the clothing insulation. Although in diverse studies the serial model resulted in unrealistic values under asymmetric insulation, the standards approve of the serial model. The reason may be the disagreement of the results for (IT) between the calculation using the parallel model, and the calculation with mean skin temperature under the uniform heat flux operating mode of the thermal manikin. Based on the theoretical study in this paper, the average skin temperature for overall is, however, obtained from a new formula . The difference between the "from mean value" and the "parallel model" could be based on the calculation of mean skin temperature in the standards. The serial model is not relevant for the calculation of (IT), independent of the thermal manikin operating mode