Figures 1 & 2. Head under construction showing 0.3 mm diameter nickel wire at a maximum spacing of 2 mm (left, 37K jpg) and torso containing electronic hardware for individually controlling the 16 body parts (right, 79K jpg) .

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general description | manikin construction 
data aquisition system | manikin applications

General Description

The Building Science Laboratory has a unique segmented thermal manikin for studying the energy use, thermal comfort, and the environmental control provided by building systems. Built by Thomas Madsen and Peter Trans at the Technical University of Denmark, this manikin measures the interactions between humans and their thermal environment much more accurately than is possible with conventional state-of-the-art instrumentation. The manikin consists of 16 body parts which are individually controlled. The individual segments allow the manikin to determine how non-uniform environments affect people. These non-uniformities in the built environment-- temperature gradients, thermal radiation from windows or heat-generating equipment, and breezes or drafts--are inevitable and indeed in some cases desirable. The manikin results are used in our various research programs: to develop design guidelines and building performance prediction tools, to develop improved operation and control strategies, and revise applicable building standards and codes to allow effective and energy-conserving technologies to be adopted by industry. 

Manikin Construction

Figures 3 & 4. Views of the electronic hardware inside the manikin's torso segment, used for controlling the 16 individual body parts (left, 67K jpg, right 41 jpg).

Skin: Construction of the skin consists of a 4 mm glass fiber-armed polyester shell, wound on the outside with 0.3 mm diameter nickel wire at a maximum spacing of 2 mm. Figure 1 shows the head under construction. The wiring is covered by a 0.1 - 1.0 mm protective coating. The heating element is placed close to the surface to give the manikin a very small time constant in comparison to earlier generation thermal manikins. The time constant is further reduced by the fact that the same nickel wire is used sequentially both for the heating of the manikin and for measuring and controlling the skin temperature. This is accomplished by cycling the wires at a frequency of 46 Hz, with each cycle first heating to maintain the desired skin temperature and then measuring the wire temperature. This method of heating produces a uniform skin surface temperature as measured by infrared thermography. 

Body: The body parts for the thermal manikin include the following: head, left upper arm, right upper arm, left forearm, right forearm, left hand, right hand, chest, back, pelvis, left thigh, right thigh, left lower leg, right lower leg, left foot, right foot. Each of the sixteen parts is individually controlled and monitored by a personal computer connected to the manikin via RS-232. Figures 3 & 4 show the the inside of the manikin's torso segment containing the electronic hardware for controlling individual body parts.

Figure 5. Hoses for inhalation and exhalation via nose and/or mouth connect to an artificial lung (26K jpg).

Breathing: The thermal manikin is also to be furnished with a breathing function, something that has not been included in previous designs. An artificial lung apparatus will allow the manikin to inhale and exhale through the nose and/or mouth (see Figure 5). Since what is inhaled in the workplace is strongly influenced by the convective plume around the human body, this function will provide more realistic air flow conditions for assessing ventilation performance and indoor air quality. (In our applications, the sampling tubes for the tracer gas system would be connected through the lung rather than from tubes suspended in the interior space as we now do.)

Manikin Data Acquisition System

Figure 6. An example of the screen image on the control computer, showing measured skin temperature and heat flux for each body part, along with a temperature color-coded graphic image of the manikin.

The manikin's data acquisition system polls the 0.3 mm diameter nickel wire to measure segment surface temperatures, and then controls the skin temperature via electronic hardware for each of the 16 body parts. The data aquisition software allows us to easily change the core temperatures for each body part to compensate for different environments or levels of human activity. All the temperatures and heat fluxes for the 16 body parts are shown in the screen.

Manikin Application

Figure 7. View of clothing insulation value experiment (74K jpg).

Manikins are widely used in different laboratories for determining the insulation value of clothing and chairs. Figure 7 shows the manikin in our controlled environmental chamber being used to determine the insulation of a woman's office clothing ensemble.

Figures 8 & 9. The manikin is also used to test localized control-systems in the controlled environmental chamber. Left ( 60K jpg), the cooling produced by a fluctuating fan designed by Panasonic Co. is tested by the thermal manikin. Right (51K jpg) shows testing of a 'task-ambient conditioning system', with air supply routed through the nozzles on the desk.

Since the segmented thermal manikin has 16 individually-controlled body zones, it is particularly useful for evaluating the non-uniform thermal environments produced by novel heating and cooling systems (these often use individually-controlled air motion to offset higher temperatures, radiant loads, or increased temperature stratification). 

Clothing insulation values are traditionally measured under still air conditions(often in a thermal environmental chamber). When air movement increases, the insulation is reduced by several processes. In this example, the thermal manikin is positioned in our wind tunnel under velocities ranging from 0.2 - 5 m/s to investigate the wind's effect on penetrating clothing, compressing the clothing's trapped air layers, and increasing the convection from the clothing's surface. The effects of the wind direction relative to the manikin is also evaluated . 

In the final image the manikin is covered with aluminum foil in an experiment to isolate the radiative and convective parts of the total heat transfer coefficient for each segment .

Figure 10. View of manikin during a wind tunnel study of air movement effects on clothing insulation (36K jpg).

Figure 11. This photo was first recorded by an infra-red video camera, then captured by a video capture program. All but the right arm and eyes are shown wrapped with foil. The foil greatly reduces radiant emission and allows the convective portion of total heat loss to be isolated (12K jpg).