Study on convective heat transfer coefficients for human body to create and evaluate non-uniform thermal environment

To accurately evaluate the thermal comfort of the human body in a non-uniform thermal environment to create a low-carbon and healthy building environment, local convective heat transfer coefficients for the human body in various airflow directions are necessary. In this paper, based on the measured experiments and CFD simulation, the influences of horizontal and vertical airflow on the local convective heat transfer coefficients for the human body are studied, the calculation models of the convective heat transfer coefficients of different parts of the human body are derived, and the influence mechanism of airflow in each direction on the convective heat transfer coefficients for the human body is analysed. The results show that the overall convective heat transfer coefficient for the human body under the horizontal airflow condition is larger than that under the vertical airflow condition. The convective heat transfer coefficients for limbs (i.e., hands, arms, and feet) are larger. The convective heat transfer coefficients for the waist, abdomen and back in the central part of the human body are smaller and less affected by the airflow in different directions.