scholarly journals Effect of the Evaporative Cooling on the Human Thermal Comfort and Heat Stress in a Greenhouse under Arid Conditions

2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
A. M. Abdel-Ghany ◽  
I. M. Al-Helal ◽  
M. R. Shady

Thermal sensation and heat stress were evaluated in a plastic greenhouse, with and without evaporative cooling, under arid climatic conditions in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Suitable thermal comfort and heat stress scales were selected for the evaluation. Experiments were conducted in hot sunny days to measure the required parameters (i.e., the dry and wet bulb temperatures, globe temperature, natural wet bulb temperature, and solar radiation flux) in the greenhouse. The results showed that in the uncooled greenhouse, workers are exposed to strong heat stress and would feel very hot most of the day time; they are safe from heat stress risk and would feel comfortable during night. An efficient evaporative cooling is necessary during the day to reduce heat stress and to improve the comfort conditions and is not necessary at night. In the cooled greenhouse, workers can do any activity: except at around noon they should follow a proposed working schedule, in which the different types of work were scheduled along the daytimes based on the heat stress value. To avoid heat stress and to provide comfort conditions in the greenhouses, the optimum ranges of relative humidity and air temperature are 48–55% and 24–28°C, respectively.

2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. M. Abdel-Ghany ◽  
I. M. Al-Helal ◽  
M. R. Shady

To protect humans from heat stress risks, thermal comfort and heat stress potential were evaluated under arid environment, which had never been made for such climate. The thermal indices THI, WBGT, PET, and UTCI were used to evaluate thermal comfort and heat stress. RayMan software model was used to estimate the PET, and the UTCI calculator was used for UTCI. Dry and wet bulb temperatures (Td,Tw), natural wet bulb temperature (Tnw), and globe temperature (Tg) were measured in a summer day to be used in the calculation. The results showed the following. (i) The thermal sensation and heat stress levels can be evaluated by either the PET or UTCI scales, and both are valid for extremely high temperature in the arid environment. (ii) In the comfort zone, around 75% of individuals would be satisfied with the surrounding environment and feel comfortable during the whole day. (iii) Persons are exposed to strong heat stress and would feel uncomfortable most of the daytime in summer. (iv) Heat fatigue is expected with prolonged exposure to sun light and activity. (v) During the daytime, humans should schedule their activities according to the highest permissible values of the WBGT to avoid thermal shock.


Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 3061 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shazia Noor ◽  
Hadeed Ashraf ◽  
Muhammad Sultan ◽  
Zahid Mahmood Khan

This study provides comprehensive details of evaporative cooling options for building air-conditioning (AC) in Multan (Pakistan). Standalone evaporative cooling and standalone vapor compression AC (VCAC) systems are commonly used in Pakistan. Therefore, seven AC system configurations comprising of direct evaporative cooling (DEC), indirect evaporative cooling (IEC), VCAC, and their possible combinations, are explored for the climatic conditions of Multan. The study aims to explore the optimum AC system configuration for the building AC from the viewpoints of cooling capacity, system performance, energy consumption, and CO2 emissions. A simulation model was designed in DesignBuilder and simulated using EnergyPlus in order to optimize the applicability of the proposed systems. The standalone VCAC and hybrid IEC-VCAC & IEC-DEC-VCAC system configurations could achieve the desired human thermal comfort. The standalone DEC resulted in a maximum COP of 4.5, whereas, it was 2.1 in case of the hybrid IEC-DEC-VCAC system. The hybrid IEC-DEC-VCAC system achieved maximum temperature gradient (21 °C) and relatively less CO2 emissions as compared to standalone VCAC. In addition, it provided maximum cooling capacity (184 kW for work input of 100 kW), which is 85% higher than the standalone DEC system. Furthermore, it achieved neutral to slightly cool human thermal comfort i.e., 0 to −1 predicted mean vote and 30% of predicted percentage dissatisfied. Thus, the study concludes the hybrid IEC-DEC-VCAC as an optimum configuration for building AC in Multan.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (13) ◽  
pp. 4445
Author(s):  
Hafiz M. U. Raza ◽  
Hadeed Ashraf ◽  
Khawar Shahzad ◽  
Muhammad Sultan ◽  
Takahiko Miyazaki ◽  
...  

In the 21st century, the poultry sector is a vital concern for the developing economies including Pakistan. The summer conditions of the city of Multan (Pakistan) are not comfortable for poultry birds. Conventionally, swamp coolers are used in the poultry sheds/houses of the city, which are not efficient enough, whereas compressor-based systems are not economical. Therefore, this study is aimed to explore a low-cost air-conditioning (AC) option from the viewpoint of heat stress in poultry birds. In this regard, the study investigates the applicability of three evaporative cooling (EC) options, i.e., direct EC (DEC), indirect EC (IEC), and Maisotsenko-cycle EC (MEC). Performance of the EC systems is investigated using wet-bulb effectiveness (WBE) for the climatic conditions of Multan. Heat stress is investigated as a function of poultry weight. Thermal comfort of the poultry birds is calculated in terms of temperature-humidity index (THI) corresponding to the ambient and output conditions. The heat production from the poultry birds is calculated using the Pederson model (available in the literature) at various temperatures. The results indicate a maximum temperature gradient of 10.2 °C (MEC system), 9 °C (DEC system), and 6.5 °C (IEC systems) is achieved. However, in the monsoon/rainfall season, the performance of the EC systems is significantly reduced due to higher relative humidity in ambient air.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 2836
Author(s):  
Khawar Shahzad ◽  
Muhammad Sultan ◽  
Muhammad Bilal ◽  
Hadeed Ashraf ◽  
Muhammad Farooq ◽  
...  

Poultry are one of the most vulnerable species of its kind once the temperature-humidity nexus is explored. This is so because the broilers lack sweat glands as compared to humans and undergo panting process to mitigate their latent heat (moisture produced in the body) in the air. As a result, moisture production inside poultry house needs to be maintained to avoid any serious health and welfare complications. Several strategies such as compressor-based air-conditioning systems have been implemented worldwide to attenuate the heat stress in poultry, but these are not economical. Therefore, this study focuses on the development of low-cost and environmentally friendly improved evaporative cooling systems (DEC, IEC, MEC) from the viewpoint of heat stress in poultry houses. Thermodynamic analysis of these systems was carried out for the climatic conditions of Multan, Pakistan. The results appreciably controlled the environmental conditions which showed that for the months of April, May, and June, the decrease in temperature by direct evaporative cooling (DEC), indirect evaporative cooling (IEC), and Maisotsenko-Cycle evaporative cooling (MEC) systems is 7–10 °C, 5–6.5 °C, and 9.5–12 °C, respectively. In case of July, August, and September, the decrease in temperature by DEC, IEC, and MEC systems is 5.5–7 °C, 3.5–4.5 °C, and 7–7.5 °C, respectively. In addition, drop in temperature-humidity index (THI) values by DEC, IEC, and MEC is 3.5–9 °C, 3–7 °C, and 5.5–10 °C, respectively for all months. Optimum temperature and relative humidity conditions are determined for poultry birds and thereby, systems’ performance is thermodynamically evaluated for poultry farms from the viewpoint of THI, temperature-humidity-velocity index (THVI), and thermal exposure time (ET). From the analysis, it is concluded that MEC system performed relatively better than others due to its ability of dew-point cooling and achieved THI threshold limit with reasonable temperature and humidity indexes.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 1257
Author(s):  
Luis Godoy-Vaca ◽  
E. Catalina Vallejo-Coral ◽  
Javier Martínez-Gómez ◽  
Marco Orozco ◽  
Geovanna Villacreses

This work aims to estimate the expected hours of Predicted Medium Vote (PMV) thermal comfort in Ecuadorian social housing houses applying energy simulations with Phase Change Materials (PCMs) for very hot-humid climates. First, a novel methodology for characterizing three different types of social housing is presented based on a space-time analysis of the electricity consumption in a residential complex. Next, the increase in energy demand under climate influences is analyzed. Moreover, with the goal of enlarging the time of thermal comfort inside the houses, the most suitable PCM for them is determined. This paper includes both simulations and comparisons of thermal behavior by means of the PMV methodology of four types of PCMs selected. From the performed energy simulations, the results show that changing the deck and using RT25-RT30 in walls, it is possible to increase the duration of thermal comfort in at least one of the three analyzed houses. The applied PCM showed 46% of comfortable hours and a reduction of 937 h in which the thermal sensation varies from “very hot” to “hot”. Additionally, the usage time of air conditioning decreases, assuring the thermal comfort for the inhabitants during a higher number of hours per day.


Atmosphere ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. 391 ◽  
Author(s):  
João Gobo ◽  
Marlon Faria ◽  
Emerson Galvani ◽  
Fabio Goncalves ◽  
Leonardo Monteiro

The bioclimatic well-being of individuals is associated with the environmental characteristics of where they live. Knowing the relationships between local and regional climatic variables as well as the physical characteristics of a given region and their implications on thermal comfort is important for identifying aspects of thermal sensation in the population. The aim of this study is to develop an empirical model of human thermal comfort based on subjective and individual environmental patterns observed in the city of Santa Maria, located in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil (Subtropical climate). Meteorological data were collected by means of an automatic meteorological station installed in the city center, which contained sensors measuring global solar radiation, air temperature, globe temperature (via a grey globe thermometer), relative humidity and wind speed and direction. A total of 1720 people were also interviewed using a questionnaire adapted from the model recommended by ISO 10551. Linear regressions were performed to obtain the predictive model. The observed results proposed a new empirical model for subtropical climate, the Brazilian Subtropical Index (BSI), which was verified to be more than 79% accurate, with a coefficient of determination of 0.926 and an adjusted R2 value of 0.924.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1420326X2092552
Author(s):  
Yang Zhang ◽  
Wenxuan Yu ◽  
Youli Li ◽  
Han Li

In this article, a comparative study on the outdoor air pollutant prevention and indoor thermal comfort for different types of ventilation was carried out. Both objective experiment, subjective experiment and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation were conducted to investigate the differences in air pollutant prevention and thermal comfort between four common ventilation methods, namely supplying on the ceiling and returning on the ceiling (SC-RC), supplying on the ceiling and returning on the side wall (SC-RSW), supplying on the side wall and returning on the ceiling (SSW-RC), and supplying on the side wall and returning on the side wall (SSW-RSW). Results show that SSW-RSW can provide the highest indoor air quality according to the indoor average PM2.5 concentration. Overall thermal sensation was introduced to evaluate the indoor comfort under the four ventilation methods. The voting results show that the indoor thermal comfort can be enhanced by 29–36% under SSW-RSW and SSW-RC. Therefore, SSW-RSW is more suitable for providing a healthy and comfortable indoor environment.


Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 3577
Author(s):  
Fatma Balany ◽  
Anne WM Ng ◽  
Nitin Muttil ◽  
Shobha Muthukumaran ◽  
Man Sing Wong

Research on urban heat mitigation has been growing in recent years with many of the studies focusing on green infrastructure (GI) as a strategy to mitigate the adverse effects of an urban heat island (UHI). This paper aims at presenting a review of the range of findings from GI research for urban heat mitigation through a review of scientific articles published during the years 2009–2020. This research includes a review of the different types of GI and its contribution for urban heat mitigation and human thermal comfort. In addition to analysing different mitigation strategies, numerical simulation tools that are commonly used are also reviewed. It is seen that ENVI-met is one of the modelling tools that is considered as a reliable to simulate different mitigation strategies and hence has been widely used in the recent past. Considering its popularity in urban microclimate studies, this article also provides a review of ENVI-met simulation results that were reported in the reviewed papers. It was observed that the majority of the research was conducted on a limited spatial scale and focused on temperature and human thermal comfort.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanna Leona Lokys ◽  
Jürgen Junk ◽  
Andreas Krein

Projected climate change will cause increasing air temperatures affecting human thermal comfort. In the highly populated areas of Western-Central Europe a large population will be exposed to these changes. In particular Luxembourg—with its dense population and the large cross-border commuter flows—is vulnerable to changing thermal stress. Based on climate change projections we assessed the impact of climate change on human thermal comfort over the next century using two common human-biometeorological indices, the Physiological Equivalent Temperature and the Universal Thermal Climate Index. To account for uncertainties, we used a multimodel ensemble of 12 transient simulations (1971–2098) with a spatial resolution of 25 km. In addition, the regional differences were analysed by a single regional climate model run with a spatial resolution of 1.3 km. For the future, trends in air temperature, vapour pressure, and both human-biometeorological indices could be determined. Cold stress levels will decrease significantly in the near future up to 2050, while the increase in heat stress turns statistically significant in the far future up to 2100. This results in a temporarily reduced overall thermal stress level but further increasing air temperatures will shift the thermal comfort towards heat stress.


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