Human environmental heat transfer simulation with CFD – the advances and challenges

Zhang, Y; Novieto, D; Ji, Y

Abstract

The modelling and prediction of human thermoregulatory responses and comfort have gone a long way during the past decades. Sophisticated and detailed human models, i.e. the active multi-nodal thermal models with physiological regulatory responses, have been developed and widely adopted
in both research and industrial practice. The recent trend is to integrate human models with environmental models in order to provide more insight into the thermal comfort issues, especially in the non-homogeneous and transient conditions. This paper reviews the logics and expectations of coupling human models with computational fluid dynamics
(CFD) models. One of main objectives of such approaches is to take the advantage of the high resolution achievable with the CFD, to replace the empirical methods used in the human models. We aim to initiate debates on the validity of this objective, and to identify the technical requirements
for achieving this goal. A simple experiment with 3D human models of different sizes and shapes is also reported. Initial results shows the presence of arms may be important. Further experiments are required to establish the impact of size and shape on simulation result.

Citation

Zhang, Y., Novieto, D., & Ji, Y. (2009, July). Human environmental heat transfer simulation with CFD – the advances and challenges. Presented at Eleventh International IBPSA Conference, Glasgow, Scotland

• Presentation Conference Type: Other
• Conference Name: Eleventh International IBPSA Conference
• Conference Location: Glasgow, Scotland
• Start Date: Jul 27, 2009
• End Date: Jul 30, 2009
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2009
• Deposit Date: May 27, 2011
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 5, 2016
• Publisher URL: http://www.bs2009.org.uk/
• Additional Information: Event Type : Conference