Geometrical form assessment of a CFD based breathing thermal manikins, designed by simplified polygonal shapes

¹ Technical University - Sofia, FPEPM, Department:“ Hydroaerodynamics and Hydraulic Machines”, Sofia 1000, Bulgaria
² SoftSim Consult Ltd., Consultant at TU - Sofia, FPEPM, Sofia 1000, Bulgaria

^* Corresponding author: m_ivanov@tu-sofia.bg

Abstract

The presented paper focuses on a CFD based analyses of the complexity in the geometrical shape of the breathing thermal manikins, associated with their main functionalities. Both impacts of the external manikin’s form were studied – over the velocity and over the temperature fields in the thermal plume zone above the head. Three different geometrical shapes are analysed – a physiologically identified (called Humanoid Manikin) and two other shapes, designed to match the overall 95th percentile of the anthropometric size of the standard person (called Polygonal Manikins). The first model represents a comprehensive multifaceted figure of a manikin with high degree of physiological identity with a female human being. The second and third one, are simplified, but still with anatomically realistic component forms, accurately representing the anthropometric size of a standard person. The difference between them is in the presence of additional flow optimization collars in the third model. The numerical results demonstrate the clear impact of the manikins’ geometrical characteristics over the simulated breathing and convective flows. The optimization with the proposed collars had a positive effect over the resulted flow acceleration at top head and chest zones. However, the improvement of the flow characteristics was observed for two of the simulated three breathing phases and further shape optimization is required.