A multi-scale simulation for heat transfer between human and heated clothing: Towards personalized and efficient thermal management

Abstract

Electrically heated clothing (EHC) is an effective personal thermal management equipment, while understanding the coupled heat transfer mechanisms at the human-heated clothing interface remains a challenge. This research develops a multi-scale simulation method to resolve the three-dimensional conjugate heat transfer phenomena in the EHC system. The accuracy of the simulation is enhanced by considering the realistic heterogeneous air layer beneath multi layers clothing and the thermal interaction between heating elements and electrically heated fabrics (EHF) using technologies of CFD and virtual garment. Firstly, the thickness of the air layer was determined by the geometric model of EHC system. Then, the EHF model was constructed and the temperature at the inner layer of the fabric (T_f) corresponding to the heating area was calculated. Finally, the T_f was used to initialize the simulation of EHC system. It was revealed that the relative errors between the simulated and experimental temperature are below 1.89 %. This simulation method facilitates adaptive EHC design, dynamic reconfiguration of heating networks, and multivariate skin temperature forecasting, thereby advancing personalized and efficient thermal management in EHC systems.