Numerical Simulation of the Air Flow and Thermal Comfort in a Train Cabin

Abstract

Results of numerical simulations of the air flow including the heat transport and the thermal radiation as well as the thermal comfort of the passengers in train cabin are presented. The computations have been performed by coupling flow simulations conducted with the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code OpenFOAM with finite-element simulations of the heat transport within the passengers using the code THESEUS-FE. With the latter the bodies of passengers are modelled based on various layers with different heat transport characteristics to account for effects like blood flow, heat transfer through the skin and the clothing as well as activity levels and ambient humidity. With these computations we simulated the thermal comfort of passengers in the cabin of DLRs concept train called Next Generation Train (NGT).