ABSTRACT
In industrial context, thermal environment and thermal comfort are important areas in the ergonomics field. Thermal comfort has been defined by Hensen (1991) as “a state in which there are no driving impulses to correct the environment by the behavior”. American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) international standards (ASHRAE 55, 2004) and ISO standard 7730 (ISO 7730, 2005) define thermal comfort as: “the condition of mind which expresses satisfaction with the thermal environment”. Djongyang et al. say that “comfort thermal occurs when body temperatures are held within narrow ranges, skin moisture is low, and the physiological effort of regulation is minimized”. Nevertheless, this definition may be considered ambiguous and depends on several circumstances, such as the place where the human is, the reason why he is in that place, the seasons, among others.
