Center for the Built Environment

The goal of this project is to examine a personalized environmental control system (PECS) by using opposed airstreams in order to control the microclimate around the human head. At Syracuse, the aerodynamics of opposing flows from both 4” (10.16 cm) and 2” (5.08 cm) diameter nozzles (respective Reynolds number based on the diameter, 13,000 and 8,500) were studied with flow visualizations and hotwire and particle image velocimetry. The laboratory studies were conducted with opposing jets at various angles that identified behavior of the radial jet in the interaction region. The flow interaction with a thermal manikin will be examined next. Parallel human subject tests at UC Berkeley to validate the effect of the flow field on human perception and productivity are in progress.