A mathematical model to investigate heat transfer in footwear during walking and jogging.

Foot temperature during activities of daily living affects the human performance and well-being. Footwear thermal characteristics affect the foot temperature inside the shoe during activities of daily living. The temperate at the sole of the foot (plantar temperature) is influenced by different thermal properties such as heat capacity, heat diffusivity, and thermal conductivity of the shoe sole in addition to its mechanical properties. Hence the purpose of this study was to propose a method to allow investigating the effect of footwear thermal characteristics on the foot temperature during activities of daily living, like walking or jogging. The transient heat transfer between the foot and the ground was studied to drive the governing equation for heat transfer modelling in footwear and to predict foot sole temperature during walking, and jogging. Different thermo-mechanical properties of shoe sole, as well as geometrical parameters, were investigated. The proposed model showed to be able to adequately predict the plantar temperature at the ball of the foot when compared to the results from experimental measurements. Finally, using the proposed method, the thermal behaviour of two different shoes with two different sole materials EVA08 and EVA12 were compared. It was shown that heat capacity as compared to the thermal conductivity of the shoe sole is more effective in reducing the plantar temperature increase in short term. The proposed method proved to be able to accurately predict the thermal behaviour of shoes and can provide a tool to predict footwear thermal comfort.

Multi-objective optimization of a photovoltaic thermal-compound sensible rotary heat exchanger system using exergo-economic and enviro-economic approaches.

This paper presents exergo-economic and enviro-economic assessment of a novel building integrated photovoltaic thermal-compound sensible rotary heat exchanger (BIPVT-SRHX) system. The innovative BIPVT-SRHX system preheats/precools the outdoor air in winter/summer and generates electric power. The performance of the system are analyzed from the energy/exergy viewpoints for Kermanshah, Iran climatic conditions. Then, the multi-objective genetic algorithm (MOGA) optimization is used to optimize to determine the optimum values of geometric and operating parameters in order to maximize the annual average exergo-economic and enviro-economic aspects of the system. The considered geometric and operating parameters include the length, width and depth of the air channel located underneath the PV modules, the air mass flow rate, and the diameter, rotational velocity and length of the SRHX. Moreover, the annual performance of the optimized and non-optimized BIPVT-SRHX systems are compared. The results showed that the annual average exergo-economic and enviro-economic aspects of the optimized BIPVT-SRHX system are 0.0076 $/annum and 246.9 kWh/$, respectively. Furthermore, it was found that the annual average enviro-economic aspect, annual average exergo-economic aspect, and yearly sum of CO2 mitigation of the optimized BIPVT-SRHX system are respectively 36.8%, 23.1% and 37.7% higher than the non-optimized system.