| Keywords |
Scrotal temperature ; Floor heating ; ONDOL |
| Abstract |
Since Koreans habitually sit on the heated floor in their residential buildings, the male testis is directlyexposed, and is therefore affected, by the floor surface temperature. The purpose of this study is to investigate thechanges in the scrotal temperature of subjects in a sedentary posture and high metabolism rate over the heated floor.A rigid screening test was performed to select healthy subjects. Finally, six college students volunteered to participatein the experiments. Experiment was designed for a high metabolism state, with the subjects playing a card game ina sedentary posture for 180min. The floor surface temperature (tf) was controlled by varying the temperature of water(tw) flowing underneath of the floor surface from 30oC to 40oC, at 5oC intervals. Experiment revealed that the finalscrotal temperature was 33.43oC, 34.78oC, and 35.61oC, and the difference between the initial and final scrotal tem-peratures was +0.34oC, +1.06oC, and +2.24oC, at tw 30oC (tf 27.8oC), 35oC (tf 31.7oC), and tw 40oC (tf 35.9oC), respec-tively. The scrotal temperature was affected by the floor surface temperature and by the rate of metabolism of thesubject in a sedentary posture. As derived from regression analysis, the recommended surface temperature of a heatedfloor is within 23oC~33oC to achieve spermatogenesis. |