Evaluation of radiative absorption effect to estimate mean radiant temperature in environments with high water vapor concentration such as in a sauna

Abstract

The importance of modeling the radiative absorption in an environment with a high concentration of water vapor, such as inside a sauna, was studied through numerical analyses and fieldwork. Radiative heat transfer analysis using the discrete ordinate method (DOM) was performed using OpenFOAM software to evaluate the influence of thermal radiation inside a sauna. In a high-temperature environment, such as a sauna, the effect of radiation heat transfer in the surrounding medium gradually increases. Therefore, the effects of the medium cannot be ignored. A full-spectrum k-distribution (FSK) was adopted to model the radiative absorption of the medium, which was composed of carbon dioxide and water vapor. The mean radiant temperature (MRT) was also determined using numerical simulations to compare the results with those measured directly using a globe thermometer. The measured MRT was lower than the air temperature because of radiative cooling by the surroundings. To evaluate the quality of the radiative absorption model, the MRT obtained using the transparent gas and FSK methods were compared. When the distance from the cooling front window was approximately 4 m, the FSK method improved the prediction of MRT by approximately 1 °C when compared with the transparent gas method, which is the conventional method. The FSK method improved the MRT prediction from the conventional method by approximately 27% in terms of the Root Mean Square Error. This result indicates the importance of modeling the MRT by considering radiative absorption in the presence of high water vapor pressure.