Modelling of human thermal comfort in armored military vehicles: An experimental study of removing heat with spot cooling

Abstract

Military combat vehicles differ in many ways from civil automotive vehicles because of their aim of usage and structure. One of these differences is using spot cooling technic for the air conditioning system in the vehicle. However, the A/C system in these vehicles is driven by the engine of the vehicle, like in civil automotive vehicles. When the engine of the vehicle is off, the A/C system does not work as well. But in some conditions, the military personnel in a military vehicle may need to work on some duties for some period of time without running the engine of the vehicle. So, military personnel need a secondary system that creates A/C effect for that period of time. In this study, an analytical model is prepared to determine the total amount of heat transfer value that should be removed from the personnel by spot cooling with different properties of blowing air to help in designing this required A/C effective system. This analytical model is validated with an experimental setup that simulates the conditions of a sample military combat vehicle. This validated analytical model has been carried out with respect to different blowing air properties and the range of distances between the louver and the personnel. The values that provide the minimum required amount of heat transfer to be removed from the personnel are determined and used to create thermal balance curves. These curves can be used to design a new A/C system to make military personnel comfortable in the vehicle.