Equation Based Heat and Mass Transfer in Porous Media

S. Pemberton[1], K. Ekici[1], R. Arimilli[1]
[1]The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA
Published in 2013

Perspiration during intense physical activity is an essential part of human thermoregulation. Clothing affects the cooling rate of the body. Heat and water vapor are coupled through evaporation and transported through the fabric. A model of the above system was developed for fabrics of different properties to simulate human cooling using COMSOL Multiphysics®. Equation-based modeling allows the researcher to fully couple and manipulate the physics. Thus, steps were taken to model drying at a liquid-vapor interface in the porous medium (PM) when a liquid state is present. Doing so incorporated the majority of physics involved in heat and mass transport in fabrics, leading to a better understanding of the effect of these fabrics on human thermoregulation.

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