Simulation of a mannequin’s thermal plume in a small room

Simulation results are presented for the buoyancy-driven flow in a small room containing a seated mannequin that is maintained at a constant temperature. The study was motivated, in part, by a published experimental study of the thermal plume around a human subject. The results presented are a step toward the goal of using DNS to develop a more detailed understanding of the nature of the flow in the thermal plume created by humans modeled here as heated mannequins. The results were obtained without using sub-grid scale modeling and are helpful in establishing the resolution requirements for accurate simulations. It is seen that the results for the highest resolution grid are in reasonable quantitative agreement with a published experimental study of a human subject’s thermal plume. The results for the velocity field are used to compute the trajectories of small particles in the room. Results are presented for the trajectories of five-micrometer solid particles that are initially dispersed near the floor in front of the mannequin. The simulation results show that the buoyancy-driven flow around the mannequin is effective at dispersing the particles over a large portion of the room.