IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v17y2020i14p4995-d383261.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Numerical Analysis of the Cooling Performance of a Hybrid Personal Cooling System (HPCS): Effects of Ambient Temperature and Relative Humidity

Author

Listed:
  • Pengjun Xu

    (School of Design Art, Xiamen University of Technology, Xiamen 361024, China
    These authors contributed to this work equally.)

  • Zhanxiao Kang

    (Thermal Environment and Ergonomics Research Group (TEERG), Institute of Textiles and Clothing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom 999007, Hong Kong
    These authors contributed to this work equally.)

  • Faming Wang

    (School of Architecture and Art, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China)

  • Udayraj

    (Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bhilai, Chhattisgarh 492015, India)

Abstract

Hybrid personal cooling systems (HPCS) incorporated with ventilation fans and phase change materials (PCMs) have shown its superior capability for mitigating workers’ heat strain while performing heavy labor work in hot environments. In a previous study, the effects of thermal resistance of insulation pads, and latent heat and melting temperature of PCMs on the HPCS’s thermal performance have been investigated. In addition to the aforementioned factors, environmental conditions, i.e., ambient temperature and relative humidity, also significantly affect the thermal performance of the HPCS. In this paper, a numerical parametric study was performed to investigate the effects of the environmental temperature and relative humidity (RH) on the thermal management of the HPCS. Five levels of air temperature under RH = 50% (i.e., 32, 34, 36, 38 and 40 °C) and four levels of environmental RH at two ambient temperatures of 36 and 40 °C were selected (i.e., RH = 30, 50, 70 and 90%) for the numerical analysis. Results show that high environmental temperatures could accelerate the PCM melting process and thereby weaken the cooling performance of HPCS. In the moderately hot environment (36 °C), HPCS presented good cooling performance with the maximum core temperature at around 37.5 °C during excise when the ambient RH ≤ 70%, whereas good cooling performance could be only seen under RH ≤ 50% in the extremely hot environment (40 °C). Thus, it may be concluded that the maximum environmental RH under which the HPCS exhibiting good cooling performance decreases with an increase in the environmental temperature.

Suggested Citation

  • Pengjun Xu & Zhanxiao Kang & Faming Wang & Udayraj, 2020. "A Numerical Analysis of the Cooling Performance of a Hybrid Personal Cooling System (HPCS): Effects of Ambient Temperature and Relative Humidity," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(14), pages 1-19, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:14:p:4995-:d:383261
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/14/4995/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/14/4995/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Zhao, Dongliang & Lu, Xing & Fan, Tianzhu & Wu, Yuen Shing & Lou, Lun & Wang, Qiuwang & Fan, Jintu & Yang, Ronggui, 2018. "Personal thermal management using portable thermoelectrics for potential building energy saving," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 218(C), pages 282-291.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Aušra Gadeikytė & Aušra Abraitienė & Rimantas Barauskas, 2023. "Application of Combined Micro- and Macro-Scale Models to Investigate Heat and Mass Transfer through Textile Structures with Additional Ventilation," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-20, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kwan, Trevor Hocksun & Zhao, Bin & Liu, Jie & Pei, Gang, 2020. "Performance analysis of the sky radiative and thermoelectric hybrid cooling system," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    2. Wenping Xue & Xiao Cao & Guangfa Zhang & Gang Tan & Zilong Liu & Kangji Li, 2022. "Structural Optimization of Heat Sink for Thermoelectric Conversion Unit in Personal Comfort System," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-16, April.
    3. Chaudhuri, Tanaya & Soh, Yeng Chai & Li, Hua & Xie, Lihua, 2019. "A feedforward neural network based indoor-climate control framework for thermal comfort and energy saving in buildings," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 248(C), pages 44-53.
    4. Kwan, Trevor Hocksun & Wu, Xiaofeng & Yao, Qinghe, 2018. "Integrated TEG-TEC and variable coolant flow rate controller for temperature control and energy harvesting," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 448-456.
    5. Park, Gimin & Kim, Jiyong & Woo, Seungjai & Yu, Jinwoo & Khan, Salman & Kim, Sang Kyu & Lee, Hotaik & Lee, Soyoung & Kwon, Boksoon & Kim, Woochul, 2022. "Modeling heat transfer in humans for body heat harvesting and personal thermal management," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 323(C).
    6. Kwan, Trevor Hocksun & Wu, Xiaofeng & Yao, Qinghe, 2018. "Bidirectional operation of the thermoelectric device for active temperature control of fuel cells," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 222(C), pages 410-422.
    7. Diana Enescu, 2024. "Heat Transfer Mechanisms and Contributions of Wearable Thermoelectrics to Personal Thermal Management," Energies, MDPI, vol. 17(2), pages 1-29, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:14:p:4995-:d:383261. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.