Air-to-air heat exchangers with cross-corrugated triangular ducts are widely used in various industrial fields to recover waste heat. The geometric parameters of the heat exchangers greatly affect the performance and total annual cost of these systems. In this study, the effectiveness-number of transfer units (ε-NTU) method was utilized to develop the thermal mathematical model, which was verified by comparing it with previous research. The configuration parameters of the heat exchanger were optimized in this study. The particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm was applied using both single and multi-objective algorithm. The colburn factor (j factor), friction factor (f factor), and comprehensive thermal hydraulic performance index (JF factor) were considered as objective functions to be optimized using a single objective and multi-objective algorithm. Then, the entropy generation rate and total annual cost were optimized by using a multi-objective PSO algorithm. In addition, to identify the influential geometric parameters, a global sensitivity analysis was performed. The sensitivity analysis showed that the apex angle θ, channel height H, and heat exchanger height L_h influenced the performance and annual total cost of these systems.

This study aimed to determine whether heart rate variability (HRV) can express the thermal comfort of mine workers. Eight subjects ran on a treadmill (5.5 km/h) to simulate heavy labor in three kinds of mining environments (22 °C/90%, 26 °C/90%, 30 °C/90%), respectively. Based on the measured electrocardiogram (ECG) data, the HRV of the subjects was calculated. The results showed that the HRV indices changed obviously under different temperature environments. In the neutral and hot environment, except for the LF, TP and LF/HF, there were significant differences in each index. However, there was no significant difference between the cold and neutral environments. The R-R intervals, the very low-frequency power (VLF), pNN20 and SampEN had strong negative correlation with the thermal sensation of people from sitting to work (ρ < −0.700). These indices may be used as thermal comfort predictive biomarkers of mine workers.