Module Overview
This module teaches engineers how to design and evaluate a cooling device for a specific target population, here the people most vulnerable to heat, older adults, by predicting not just airflow, but comfort itself. Using a single running example, a chair that builds a pocket of cool air around a seated person, it shows how three physics models are coupled into one loop: computational fluid dynamics (CFD) for the air, a multi-segment bioheat model for the body, and a thermal-sensation model for how the person feels, each adapted for age-related physiology. Learners follow the full engineering life cycle -design against competing constraints, validate against a thermal-manikin experiment, and run parametric studies- and see how the chair holds elderly users at neutral comfort in warm rooms and improves hot rooms substantially, using a fraction of whole-room air-conditioning energy. The framework is then extended to a ventilated vest that reuses the chair's cool air, demonstrating that the same coupled method generalizes cleanly from one device to the next.
