Numerical Investigation of Heat Transfer in Garment Air Gap

Abstract

Abstract This article aimed to study the characteristics and mechanisms of 3D heat transfer through clothing involving the air gap. A three-dimensional finite volume method is used to obtain the coupled conductive, convective, and radiative heat transfer in a body-air-cloth microclimate system. The flow contours and characteristics of temperature, heat flux, and velocity have been obtained. The reason for the high flux and temperature regions was analyzed. Computational results show that the coupled effect of the air gap and the airflow between the skin and garment strongly influences the temperature and heat flux distribution. There are several high-temperature regions on the clothing and high heat flux regions on the body skin because the conductive heat flux can cross through the narrow air gap and reach the cloth surface easily. The high-speed cooling airflow brings about high forced convective heat flux, which will result in the temperature increase on the upper cloth surface. The radiative heat flux has a strong correlation with the temperature gradient between the body and clothing. But its proportion in the total heat flux is relatively small.