Thermophysiological coupled analysis with COM, ES, and CFD

Abstract

The introduction of simulation technologies has resulted in the growth of analytical results that can be implemented in building design. Energy simulations (ESs) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) are primarily used in building energy simulations. Although the predicted mean vote (PMV) obtained from simulation results is typically used as a human-body evaluation index, the heat balance of a human thermal model is more precise. Moreover, the PMV should be calculated based on unsteady thermophysiology. Therefore, this study forms the initial phase for the thermophysiological estimation of unsteady analysis and “focused” case studies, such as steady-state analysis, in an environment where forced convection is dominant. It was revealed that the convective heat-transfer coefficient (CHTC) was dominant in a forced convection field; therefore, the convergent calculation in the suggested coupled analysis model was not necessary when comparing the results of human thermophysiology. The difference between the temperatures of the skin surface and that obtained with clothing using the convergent calculation was a maximum of 0.5 °C. We conducted comparative tests between different inlet-angle cases of air conditioners based on case studies, which were typically conducted during the facility design stage. Thereafter, we confirmed the influence of CHTC variations on thermophysiology and their contribution to the PMV calculation values. Although the analytical PMV results showed values outside of the application range (≤−3.0), they primarily fell within the normal range. Moreover, when the angle was set at 60° to project onto the floor, a difference of approximately 2 °C in the wall temperature was observed. This study forms the basis for further developing simulation models that aim to apply a coupled analysis method to future building designs.