Evaluation of Kyogen costume storage environment and calculation of proper temperature setting for energy conservation effect using fungal index
by Edison Suzuki
Category: STEM
Abstract – The American School in Japan has had a Kyogen club since 1978. Kyogen is a Japanese deadpan comedy with a 650-year history, from the Muromachi period. When performing Kyogen, student actors wear special Kyogen costumes called “sho-zoku.” The school stores these costumes in boxes made of paulownia wood in the storage room. However, no studies have been done before on the environmental conditions inside the paulownia box and the storage room to determine if they are suitable for maintaining expensive “sho-zoku.” Therefore, in this study, data loggers that can measure temperature, humidity and fungal index were installed on the shelf and inside a paulownia box for 10 months to measure these environmental conditions. As the result of analysis of measured data and calculation, two main results were obtained. The first result was that when the “sho-zoku” were stored in a paulownia box in the storage room, the fungal index value was kept low without undergoing sudden changes in the ambient relative humidity. The second result was that in the summer, if the air conditioning temperature in the storage room is set to 30.4°C, the relative humidity will decrease to 67.5% or less. As a result, the fungal index value will stay below the threshold value of 1, meaning that there would likely be very little mold in the environment. Also, the power consumption of the air conditioner will decrease by 54%.