Maintaining human thermal comfort in cold indoor environments is crucial but usually involves excessive energy consumption and massive greenhouse gas emissions. Thermoregulating the human body by using advanced clothi...Maintaining human thermal comfort in cold indoor environments is crucial but usually involves excessive energy consumption and massive greenhouse gas emissions. Thermoregulating the human body by using advanced clothing is emerging as a promising solution to effectively and energy-efficiently achieve personal thermal management. An air inflatable suit(AirST)using a series of air chambers as the thermal insert was developed for the purpose of adjusting clothing thermal insulation and hence improving personal thermal comfort. The thermal insulation regulating performance of AirST was investigated through thermal manikin tests and wear trials. Compared with the AirST without air inflation, AirST after inflation with air had a desired effect, which could not only increase local clothing thermal insulation by a range from 4.5% to 24.8% but also alleviate cold strain and provide significantly higher local skin temperatures, mean skin temperature and mean body temperature. After inflation, AirST successfully improved the whole-, upper-and lower-body thermal sensations in a cool environment. The acceptable heating setpoint temperature by the air conditioner could be decreased while using AirST with inflation, which saved approximately 30% of building energy consumption. As the AirST without air inflation can also be worn as regular windproof clothing, this versatility saved approximately 12 kg CO_(2)e emissions in the production process.展开更多
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant No.51906169)the Nantong Science and Technology Project(Grant No.JC2021004)+2 种基金the Natural Science Research Project for Colleges and Universities in Jiangsu Province(Grant No.21KJA540004)the Suzhou Science and Technology Project(Grant No.SS202147)the Open Project of Key Laboratory of Clothing Design and Technology(Grant No.KCLDT2020-04)。
文摘Maintaining human thermal comfort in cold indoor environments is crucial but usually involves excessive energy consumption and massive greenhouse gas emissions. Thermoregulating the human body by using advanced clothing is emerging as a promising solution to effectively and energy-efficiently achieve personal thermal management. An air inflatable suit(AirST)using a series of air chambers as the thermal insert was developed for the purpose of adjusting clothing thermal insulation and hence improving personal thermal comfort. The thermal insulation regulating performance of AirST was investigated through thermal manikin tests and wear trials. Compared with the AirST without air inflation, AirST after inflation with air had a desired effect, which could not only increase local clothing thermal insulation by a range from 4.5% to 24.8% but also alleviate cold strain and provide significantly higher local skin temperatures, mean skin temperature and mean body temperature. After inflation, AirST successfully improved the whole-, upper-and lower-body thermal sensations in a cool environment. The acceptable heating setpoint temperature by the air conditioner could be decreased while using AirST with inflation, which saved approximately 30% of building energy consumption. As the AirST without air inflation can also be worn as regular windproof clothing, this versatility saved approximately 12 kg CO_(2)e emissions in the production process.
