Development of human-body exergy balance model for a better understanding of thermal comfort in the built environment

Abstract

This paper briefly describes the human–body exergy balance equation developed so far applying a variety of formulae derived from the fundamentals of thermodynamics, namely the concepts of wet/dry exergy associated with moist air and liquid water, warm/cool exergy transferred by radiation and convection. A couple of numerical examples of the whole human–body exergy balance are given and discussed in relations to mean radiant temperature, room air temperature, air velocity, and outdoor environmental temperature. We have found so far that it is very important to control the amount of thermal radiant exergy in room space both in winter and in summer.