A 24-m3 direct heat-sink calorimeter with on-line data acquisition, processing, and control.

The construction and performance of a 24-m3 direct heat-sink calorimeter for continuous measurement of evaporative and sensible heat loss in human subjects are described. Extensive use of real-time processing for compensation of physical time constants and delays made it possible to solve response-time and stability problems associated with the large volume. The performance characteristics of the calorimeter are 1) a linear response between 0 and 320 W (471 g . h-1) for evaporative heat with a precision of 4.0-0.6% in the range 25-100 W, 2) a linear response between 0 and 280 W for sensible heat with a precision of 1.4-0.2% in the range 50-200 W, 3) a stability corresponding to a drift of less than 0.6 W (24 and 72 h) on both evaporative and sensible heat outputs and 24- and 72-h standard deviations (values every 2 min) of 0.3 and 0.4 W for evaporative heat and 0.6 and 0.7 W for sensible heat, 4) response times (95%) of 15 min for both evaporative and sensible heat, 5) independency on the position of the calibration source within the chamber, 6) no measurable "cross talk" between evaporative and sensible heat inputs, 7) negligible dependency of the external air humidity between 14 and 70%, and 8) operating temperature range from 18 to 30 degrees C. More than 40 experiments of 25-h duration with human subjects have been carried out. In no case was any discomfort recorded. An example of the 25-h continuous evaporative and sensible heat output tracing of one experiment is given.