Flow visualizations and hot-wire measurements on air flow in two different neonate incubators

Flow visualizations and hot-wire measurements on the inside flows of two different incubators are presented in this paper. An anatomically-correct neonate model was fabricated using the rapid prototyping machine, based on the 3-D scanned data. The result showed that air flow in the incubator was affected not only by the air circulation system but also by the design of incubator chamber. Large rotating motions were located around the corners of free space. A number of small eddies were found in regions of high shear flow, in areas such as that between the air inlet and the neonate. But, these small eddies were found to be stationary at that locations. Those small eddies might interfere with convective and evaporative heat transfers from the neonate. This study has led to a better understanding of flow mechanism in an incubator chamber and provided the guidance needed for the advancement of improved computational fluid dynamic models.