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Printed in Singapore. All rights reserved
2015 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd
INDOOR AIR
doi:10.1111/ina.12208
Y. Cheng1, Z. Lin2
1
Z. Lin
Division of Building Science and Technology
City University of Hong Kong
Kowloon
Hong Kong
Tel.: +852 3442 9805
Fax: +852 3442 9716
e-mail: bsjzl@cityu.edu.hk
Received for review 11 December 2014. Accepted for
publication 30 March 2015.
Practical Implications
This study reports the interaction between the human body and room airow and its eect on thermal comfort under
stratum ventilation, which can have a number of implications for both knowledge and understanding of the thermal
environment in a stratum-ventilated room. With respect to the former, it expounds the interaction between the human
body and room airow with this air distribution method; and with respect to the latter, it reveals the mechanism of
the uniform thermal environment in the occupied zone under stratum ventilation.
Introduction
Methods
Objective measurements of airflow pattern and temperature profiles
275
employed, ranging from a rectangular box to a humanlike thermal manikin. However, a number of studies
have demonstrated that the geometry of manikins has
an impact only in the local ow pattern around them
and, reversely, has little inuence on the airow at
some distance from them (Gao and Niu, 2005; Topp
et al., 2003). A less detailed geometry is thus sucient
and ecient to evaluate the global airow pattern.
Therefore, the rectangular box is adopted in this study
to simulate the human body.
Environmental chamber and experimental setup. All
experiments were conducted in an environmental
(a)
(b)
vertical measurement zone for velocity vector
16
L3
L1
8
L8
L7
L6 L5
L2
S4
1203
1398
800 -1400
2400
L4
Fig. 1 Experimental set-up and measurement layout (mm). (a) Plan view. S1S4 and R1R4 are the supply and return air terminals,
respectively. (b) Section view across the center of the supply terminal S4
276
ACH
7
10
15
State of Manikin 8
troom (C)
ts (C)
U0 (m/s)
Absent
Unheated
Heated
Absent
Unheated
Heated
Absent
Unheated
Heated
27.027.1
20.221.0
1.79
27.127.3
19.620.2
2.82
26.627.3
21.521.6
4.71
*ACH, air change rate; troom, room air temperature; ts, supply air temperature; U0, the
measured supply velocity.
Case
Thermal manikins
(W)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
1,500 (15
1,500 (15
1,600 (16
1,500 (15
1,500 (15
1,600 (16
1,500 (15
1,500 (15
1,600 (16
9
9
9
9
9
9
9
9
9
100)
100)
100)
100)
100)
100)
100)
100)
100)
Workstation
Ceiling
lights
Computers
Heater*
Total
(W)
300
300
300
300
300
300
300
300
300
1,176
1,176
1,176
1,176
1,176
1,176
1,176
1,176
1,176
300
300
300
300
300
300
300
300
300
0
0
0
1,000
1,000
1,000
2,000
2,000
2,000
3,276
3,276
3,376
4,276
4,276
4,376
5,276
5,276
5,376
277
Fig. 2 Smoke tests of ow pattern with a heated manikin (left) and a real human occupant (right)
1.4
L2
1.2
1.1
1.0
Thermal manikin
Human body
1.2
1.1
0.9
0.8
0.8
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
Air speed (m/s)
Thermal manikin
1.0
0.9
L6
1.3
1.3
Height (m)
Height (m)
1.3
1.4
L4
Human body
Height (m)
1.4
1.2
1.1
1.0
0.9
Thermal manikin
Human body
0.8
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
Air speed (m/s)
Fig. 3 Air speed (magnitude of velocity) proles in front of and behind Seat 8 at 10 ACH
(a)
(b)
(b)
(c)
280
Fig. 6 Normalized air temperature proles in front of and behind Seat 8 under 10 ACH
elevation in the incoming air speed. The obvious difference occurs downstream of the manikin while the
jets were able to penetrate into the breathing zone
under these three airow rates because no uprising
ow was observed in front of the manikin. At the
lowest 7 ACH, because of the low supply momentum, no jet reached the downstream side of the manikin and consequently, a slow uprising ow is formed
there due to the body heat (Figure 7a). Thus, the
weak air movement may deteriorate thermal comfort
in the rear row. The increased supply airow rates of
10 ACH and 15 ACH enabled the jets to ow over
the manikin, resulting in an elevated air movement
downstream (Figure 7b,c). This may help to improve
comfort conditions of the rear row in a warm environment.
To quantify the relative strengths of the momentum
of buoyancy from the heated manikin and of the
momentum of the incoming airow, Heist et al. (2003)
dened an overall Richardson number (Ri), as follows:
Ri
FB
gQ
;
3
FU LU qCp Troom
Ar
7
10
15
11.9 9 103
5.46 9 103
1.55 9 103
Ri
1.79
0.052
2.64
0.036
4.95
0.030
p
h
i
*Ar, the supply Archimedes number ArgU 2ATt roomt s ; A, the free area of supply terminal.
0 room
(c)
Human subject tests were conducted to evaluate thermal sensation and comfort in a stratum-ventilated
room with two-row occupants. During the test duration of 120 min, the subjects reached the thermal
steady state (Figure S1 in Supporting Information).
As the analysis was conducted for the thermal steady
state, the last votes by the subjects are used. For the
supply airow rates of 7 ACH, 10 ACH and 15 ACH,
the average thermal sensation was 0.07, 0.13, and
0.08, respectively. This indicated that the subjects felt
neutral at the room temperature of 27 C, which is in
agreement with the ndings of our previous studies
(Cheng et al., 2014; Fong et al., 2011).
Tables 4 and 5 provide the distributions of thermal
sensation and comfort votes, respectively. For the supply airow rate of 7 ACH, 65% (38% for the rst row
and 27% for the second row) of the subjects voted
thermal sensation as neutral. Combining the votes of
the comfort side (+0, +1 and +2), 78% (47% for the
rst row and 31% for the second row) of the subjects
felt comfort. As shown in Table 5, the thermal discomfort mainly occurred at the second row. This was
attributed to the short thermal length at this supply airow rate, which produced insucient air movement,
particularly for the second row. It is also seen from the
cross-tabulation of thermal comfort and air movement
preference (Table S1 in Supporting Information). For
Table 4 Distribution of thermal sensation votes (showing the number of the subjects and
the corresponding percentage in parentheses)
Supply airflow rate
7 ACH
10 ACH
15 ACH
Thermal
sensation*
First row
Second
row
First row
Second
row
First row
Second
row
3
2
1
0
+1
+2
+3
Total
0
1 (2%)
4 (9%)
17 (38%)
1 (2%)
0
0
23 (51%)
0
0
1 (2%)
12 (27%)
9 (20%)
0
0
22 (49%)
0
0
2 (4%)
18 (41%)
2 (4%)
1 (2%)
0
23 (51%)
0
0
3 (7%)
14 (31%)
3 (7%)
2 (4%)
0
22 (49%)
0
0
3 (7%)
19 (42%)
1 (2%)
0
0
23 (51%)
0
0
5 (11%)
14 (31%)
3 (7%)
0
0
22 (49%)
*3, 2, 1, 0, +1, +2 and +3 represents cold, cool, slightly cool, neutral, slightly warm,
warm and hot, respectively.
10 ACH
15 ACH
Thermal
comfort*
First row
Second
row
First row
Second
row
First row
Second
row
2
1
0
+0
+1
+2
Total
0
0
2 (4%)
11 (25%)
9 (20%)
1 (2%)
23 (51%)
2 (4%)
0
6 (13%)
5 (11%)
8 (18%)
1 (2%)
22 (49%)
1 (2%)
0
3 (7%)
10 (22%)
6 (13%)
3 (7%)
23 (51%)
0
1 (2%)
3 (7%)
12 (27%)
4 (9%)
2 (4%)
22 (49%)
0
1 (2%)
1 (2%)
12 (27%)
7 (16%)
2 (4%)
23 (51%)
1 (2%)
0
2 (4%)
13 (29%)
5 (12%)
1 (2%)
22 (49%)
*2, 1, 0, +0, +1 and +2 represents very uncomfortable, uncomfortable, just uncomfortable, just comfortable, comfortable and very comfortable, respectively.
Supporting Information
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