Passive Control Of The Bed Micro-Environment By Quilts

An easy method to passively control the bed micro-environment and thus thermal comfort of people is to use a cover with appropriate thermal insulation. The purpose of this study was to find out the potential of generating uniform and non-uniform bed thermal micro-environment with quilts. The effect of the thermal resistance of quilts on the temperature field in the bed and dry heat loss of a human body was studied.

Thermal manikin was used to resemble person in bed. Four quilts with different properties such as weight and non-uniform filling and type of filling material (Muscovy down and polyester fibre) were studied. Full-scale experiments were conducted in a ventilated climate chamber under four thermal conditions including two levels of relative humidity (50% and 70%) and two air temperatures (15ᵒC and 20ᵒC).

The dry heat loss of the thermal manikin was higher with polyester fibre quilt than with quilt having the same weight but with Muscovy down filling. This was obtained under all tested room conditions. The studied non-uniformity in down distribution of the quilt provided similar thermal insulation on the feet and chest.