Heat transfer characteristics of a novel sleeping bed with an integrated hot water heating system

• Published in: Applied thermal engineering Vol. 113; pp. 79 - 86
• Main Authors: Wang, Dengjia, Chen, Penghao, Liu, Yanfeng, Wu, Chunjin, Liu, Jiaping
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Elsevier Ltd 25.02.2017; Elsevier BV
• Subjects: Bed; Computational fluid dynamics; Computer simulation; Contractors; Design analysis; Design engineering; Experiment; Heat transfer; Heat transfer characteristics; Heating system; Hot water heating; Mathematical models; Numerical simulation; Thermal comfort; Water heaters; Water heating; Bed; Heat transfer characteristics; Numerical simulation; Heating system; Experiment
• ISSN: 1359-4311; 1873-5606
• DOI: 10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2016.11.027

•A novel pipe bed heating system (PBHS) is proposed.•The thermal performance of PBHS has been obtained by experiment and simulation.•The numerical simulation method is demonstrated to be accurate. This study investigates a novel and simple design for a sleeping bed with an integral hot water heating system that can satisfy the varying thermal comfort requirements of the occupants of a bedroom throughout the day. The design of heating system is presented. A mathematical model is established by analyzing the heat transfer mechanisms of the system. Experiments are conducted to determine the heat transfer of the various parts of the bed when heat source is active and inactive. Numerical simulations are performed using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to simulate the heat transfer at various operating conditions to provide a reference for the design of the bed. The differences in the results obtained using CFD and experiments are analyzed for a selected operating condition.