Combined simulation of airflow, radiation and moisture transport for heat release from a human body

Abstract

This paper described a combined numerical simulation method of airflow, thermal radiation and moisture transport for predicting heat release from a human body. A human thermo-physiological model was also included to examine the sensible and latent heat transfer from the human body. Flow, temperature and moisture fields were investigated with three-dimensional Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). We used a low-Reynolds-number type k– ϵ turbulence model, with the generalized curvilinear coordinate system to represent the complicated shape of the human body. The thermal radiation was calculated by means of Gebhart’s absorption factor method, and the view factors were obtained by the Monte Carlo method. We adopted Gagge’s two-node model to simulate the metabolic heat production and the thermoregulatory control processes of the human body. The predicted results were very close to those of an actual human body in a similar situation.