Modelling heat transfer and physiological responses of unclothed human body in hot environment by coupling CFD simulation with thermal model

Abstract

A coupling system was developed in the present study to simulate the heat transfer and physiological responses of the unclothed human body in hot environment. This system included a computational thermal manikin controlled by a mutli-node thermal model, which could dynamically respond to the environmental conditions. The computational thermal manikin was employed to determine the heat transfer between the human body and ambient environment as well as heat transfer coefficients at each body segment. The CFD simulation was then coupled with a multi-node thermal model to predict the heat transfer and human physiological responses in real time. The performance of coupling system was examined by comparing the simulated skin temperatures with the published measurements from human trials in hot environment. The CFD simulation results indicated that the calculated values of heat flux and heat transfer coefficients agreed well with test data and simulated results in literature. The coupling system reasonably predicted the skin temperatures at local body segments with the maximum discrepancies between the observed values and simulated ones no more than 1.0 °C, except for arm. The results suggested that the developed system was capable of simulating the heat flux and physiological responses in hot environment, which provided an effective tool to better predict thermal comfort, heat stress, and skin burn.