WO2017199452A1

WO2017199452A1 - Next-generation high-resolution human calorimeter

Info

Publication number: WO2017199452A1
Application number: PCT/JP2016/070772
Authority: WO
Inventors: 中島　茂
Original assignee: 富士医科産業株式会社
Priority date: 2016-05-17
Filing date: 2016-07-14
Publication date: 2017-11-23
Also published as: JP6335969B2; CN107374634B; JP2017205186A; KR20170129582A; CN107374634A; KR101910019B1

Abstract

[Problem] To provide a next-generation high-resolution human calorimeter which controls an air supply volume and an exhaust volume within a chamber, thereby measuring an energy metabolism rate in a stable state. [Solution] A sub-chamber 20 is disposed which controls, with an air conditioner, the temperature of air which is introduced from the outside. An air supply fan 11 is disposed which supplies a chamber 10 with the air inside the sub-chamber 20. An exhaust fan 12 is disposed which discharges the air inside the chamber 10 externally thereto. A pair of DC power supply regulators 13, 14 are disposed which respectively control the current values of the air supply fan 11 and the exhaust fan 12. A pair of mass flow meters 15, 16 are disposed which measure and control the air supply and exhaust volumes of the air inside the chamber 10. The current values of the DC power supply regulators 13, 14 are regulated. The configuration is such that the air supply and exhaust volumes of each of the mass flow meters 15, 16 are equal.

Description

Next generation high analysis human calorimeter

The present invention is a next generation that continuously measures the gas concentration of N2, O2, CO2-44, CO2-45, Ar, etc. of a subject housed in a chamber to measure the subject's energy consumption and the amount of oxidation of the energy substrate. It relates to type high analysis human calorimeter.

As a conventional human calorimeter, there is a high-analysis human calorimeter previously proposed by the present applicant (see Patent Document 1). In this human calorimeter, the pressure inside the chamber is set to the same pressure as the outside air pressure. For the temperature control inside the chamber, a cooler using chiller water as cooling circulating water, a heater unit, and these devices An air conditioner equipped with a digital indicating controller that performs measurement control is installed. Further, the air whose temperature is controlled by the air conditioner is blown into the chamber by a plurality of ventilation fans.

With this human calorimeter, it is possible to measure even a small amount of heat such as meals, heat at rest, heat during sleep, etc. in a short time, and improve the measurement accuracy of metabolic calorimeter using chamber Can now. Moreover, it is possible to measure the metabolic calorie in daily life very accurately, and it has a highly accurate function that can be used for new research by this accurate metabolic calorie measurement.

Japanese Patent No. 4591852

The conventional human calorimeter has adopted a configuration in which air temperature-controlled by an air conditioner is directly blown into the chamber. That is, the air temperature controlled by the air conditioner is blown into the chamber by a plurality of ventilation fans.

However, the air supplied into the chamber needs to be supplied at a constant flow rate with air conditioned by an air conditioner. When a lot of outside air is temporarily supplied to the metabolic laboratory with intermittent air supply, the oxygen concentration (O2) in the metabolic laboratory increases and the carbon dioxide (CO2) decreases. This slight variation in the air concentration uses a gas analyzer / high-accuracy mass spectrometer, so that temporary noise is measured, resulting in inconvenience. This change in air concentration affects energy consumption.

Therefore, it is necessary to develop a new Flow system to solve this problem. This is because, in order to further increase the measurement accuracy, it is necessary to control the air supply amount and the exhaust amount accurately so that the air supply amount is always constant in the test chamber.

In addition, overseas human calorimeters have conventionally installed an air conditioner inside the indoor ceiling. That is, it is a system that blows out from the front of the ceiling and supplies air from the rear of the ceiling, and circulates the air that has been blown out from the indoor ceiling into the room. In this method, the air flow in the room is difficult to be uniform, and air is not completely mixed, so that there is a possibility that an error occurs between the temperature difference and the air concentration in the room.

Therefore, the present invention was created to solve the above-mentioned problems, and by controlling the air supply amount and exhaust amount in the chamber, the air is circulated in the room on average to make the gas concentration uniform. The purpose is to provide a next-generation high-analysis human calorimeter that can measure energy metabolism in a stable state.

In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, the first means in the present invention is an energy metabolism for measuring the subject's metabolism from the oxygen intake amount and carbon dioxide production amount of the subject housed in the chamber 10 in which the air supply / exhaust amount is adjusted. In the calorimeter, the sub-chamber 20 that controls the temperature of air taken in from the outside with an air conditioner, the air supply fan 11 that supplies the temperature-controlled air in the sub-chamber 20 to the chamber 10, The exhaust fan 12 for discharging the air to the outside, the pair of DC

power supply controllers

13 and 14 for controlling the current values of the air supply fan 11 and the exhaust fan 12 respectively, and the supply and exhaust amount of air in the chamber 10 Is provided with a pair of

mass flow meters

15 and 16 and adjusts the current values of the DC

power supply controllers

13 and 14 to equalize the supply / exhaust air volume indicated by the

mass flow meters

15 and 16. It lies in the sea urchin configuration.

The second means is that a total heat exchanger 30 for exchanging heat between the temperature of the outside air supplied into the sub-chamber 20 and the temperature of the indoor air exhausted from the sub-chamber 20 is disposed outside the sub-chamber 20. It is configured to supply air into the sub chamber 20 after the outside air temperature is brought close to the temperature of room air by the total heat exchanger 30.

The third means is to install a self-supporting air conditioner 40 that sucks air in the chamber 10 from below and exhausts it from the top in the chamber 10, and supplies and exhausts the self-supporting air conditioner 40. The gas concentration in the chamber 10 was configured to be uniform.

The fourth means is configured such that the set temperature and humidity in the chamber 10 are set in advance according to the environmental conditions of the temperature and humidity of the living environment where the person lives.

The fifth means comprises a high-accuracy new mass spectrometer with an analysis accuracy of 0.001% in the mass analysis in the chamber 10.

According to claim 1 of the present invention, the configuration is as follows. A sub-chamber 20 that controls the temperature of air taken in from the outside with an air conditioner. An air supply fan 11 that supplies air whose temperature is controlled in the sub-chamber 20 to the chamber 10. An exhaust fan 12 that exhausts the air in the chamber 10 to the outside. A pair of DC

power supply controllers

13 and 14 for controlling current values of the air supply fan 11 and the exhaust fan 12, respectively. A pair of

mass flow meters

15 and 16 that measure the supply and exhaust amount of air in the chamber 10 are provided. The current values of the DC

power supply controllers

13 and 14 were adjusted so that the supply / exhaust air amounts indicated by the

mass flow meters

15 and 16 were equalized. As a result, the supply amount of air supplied into the sub-chamber 20 and the discharge amount discharged from the sub-chamber 2010 are controlled to the same amount, and the differential pressure in the sub-chamber 2010 is always 0, resulting in a normal pressure environment. .

As a result, the inside of the chamber 10 becomes an environment where there is no leakage in the room under normal pressure and the gas concentration in the metabolic laboratory is not affected. Moreover, even in a large test room, the supply and exhaust settings can be accurately controlled even in a large test room, so that a small test room environment can be created. Furthermore, there is no change in the indoor volume used for the calculation of energy metabolism, and the accuracy of measurement becomes high.

As in claim 2, the total heat exchanger 30 is installed outside the sub-chamber 20 so that the outside air temperature is brought close to the temperature of the room air in the total heat exchanger 30 and then supplied into the sub-chamber 20. Configured. Even in a state where the outside air temperature changes rapidly, the temperature change in the sub-chamber 20 can be suppressed as much as possible, and the temperature difference in the sub-chamber 20 can be kept small.

As in claim 3, a self-supporting air conditioner 40 that sucks the air in the chamber 10 from below and exhausts it from the upper part is installed in the chamber 10, and the supply and exhaust of the self-supporting air conditioner 40 By configuring the gas concentration in the chamber 10 to be uniform, the measurement accuracy of energy consumption is further improved. In addition, since the subject has no temperature difference in the room, a high-accuracy metabolic test room excellent in comfort can be provided.

As described in claim 4, the human calorimeter normally performs a human metabolic test under constant temperature and humidity conditions. In fact, the human living environment has a diurnal variation in the temperature difference between daytime and nighttime, or the temperature difference during the daytime, and a program has been developed that enables a more accurate metabolic test under the human living environment. The effects of the living environment on the human internal environment can be accurately reproduced and energy metabolism tests can be performed. The set temperature and humidity in the chamber 10 are pre-programmed according to changes in the temperature and humidity of the outside air, so that the external environment that gives the indoor environment of daily fluctuations of the living environment to the human internal environment can be accurately Can be reproduced. As a result, it has become possible to conduct experimental studies in which the difference between the constant temperature environment and the daily environment affects human metabolism.

As described in claim 5, since the mass analysis in the chamber 10 is equipped with a high-accuracy new type mass spectrometer having an analysis accuracy of 0.001%, it is possible to measure a small amount of energy consumption with higher accuracy.

As described above, according to the present invention, the air supply amount and the exhaust amount in the chamber can be controlled to circulate the indoor air to make the gas concentration uniform, and the energy metabolism amount can be measured with high accuracy in a stable state. Is possible.

It is the schematic which shows this invention apparatus. It is the schematic which shows the stirring state of the air of this invention chamber.

Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. The apparatus of the present invention is a metabolic calorimeter that measures the metabolic calorie of a subject, and in particular, measures the metabolic calorie from the consumption of oxygen and the discharge of carbon dioxide gas of the subject accommodated in the chamber. The main configuration of the present invention includes a chamber 10 and a sub-chamber 20, an air supply fan 11 and an exhaust fan 12, and DC

power supply controllers

13 and 14 and

mass flow meters

15 and 16.

The chamber 10 constitutes an independent highly airtight room for accommodating the subject. This chamber 10 is an assembly of heat-insulated panels made of steel plates, and the joint portion of each panel is sealed with silicon caulking to maintain airtightness. Furthermore, the atmospheric pressure in the chamber 10 is set to be the same as the external atmospheric pressure.

That is, the temperature of air taken from outside in the sub-chamber 20 is controlled by an air conditioner, and the air supply fan 11 that supplies the temperature-controlled air to the chamber 10 and the air in the chamber 10 are discharged to the outside. The exhaust fan 12 is controlled.

In the present invention, a pair of DC

power supply controllers

13 and 14 for controlling the current values of the air supply fan 11 and the exhaust fan 12 are provided. On the other hand, a pair of

mass flow meters

15 and 16 for measuring the amount of air supply and exhaust in the chamber 10 are installed. The DC

power supply controllers

13 and 14 and the

mass flow meters

15 and 16 are configured so that the atmospheric pressure in the chamber 10 becomes the same as the external atmospheric pressure. That is, the current values of the DC

power supply controllers

13 and 14 are controlled to adjust the supply / exhaust air amounts indicated by the

mass flow meters

15 and 16 to be equal.

In addition, if the air supplied into the chamber 10 is not completely mixed with the indoor air, an error occurs in the concentration of air in the chamber 10, and this error greatly affects energy consumption. Therefore, in the present invention, a self-supporting air conditioner 40 is provided in the chamber 10 so as to circulate in the chamber 10 with a uniform airflow (see FIG. 1).

This self-supporting air conditioner 40 is a device that accurately controls the temperature and humidity in the chamber 10, and the air concentration in the chamber 10 is reduced by inhaling the air in the chamber 10 from the bottom and exhausting it from the top. It is configured to be uniform. In the illustrated example, a fan 17, a humidifier 18, a heater unit 19, and a cooler 22 are provided, and these controls are performed by the measurement control unit 3.

The cooler 22 controls the temperature of the cooler 22 to be constant by circulating the chiller water to the cooling water tank by the chiller unit 21. For example, cooling water whose water temperature is controlled to 5 degrees ± 0.1 degrees Celsius is circulated through the chiller unit 21 and air in the chamber 10 passing through the chiller unit 21 is cooled.

The heater unit 19 heats the temperature in the chamber 10. The chiller unit 21 and the air conditioner 22 are controlled by the measurement control unit 3 that measures and controls the chiller unit 21 and the air conditioner 22, and the temperature in the chamber 10 is made constant.

The fan 17 circulates the air in the chamber 10 by exhausting the air sucked into the lower part of the self-supporting air conditioner 40 from the upper part, thereby controlling the temperature and humidity of the room air at a constant level. By mounting a blade that can be adjusted vertically and horizontally on the front surface of the fan 17, it becomes possible to circulate air more efficiently. In addition, the fan 17 adopts a plurality of pressure-type multi-air flow systems and performs ventilation by inverter control, thereby adopting an air conditioning system in which no temperature difference occurs in the room. As a result, the chamber 10 has a uniform environment with no difference in gas concentration, stabilizes the temperature / humidity and air concentration, and realizes an environment having a uniform indoor gas concentration from rest to exercise.

The humidifier 18 is provided to accurately control the humidity in the chamber 10. The humidifier 18 desirably has an accuracy of ± 1% or less with respect to a set value of 50%, for example (± 3% or less by environmental test room A class control). By adopting such a humidifier 18, highly accurate humidity control in the chamber 10 can be realized. Further, the use of the steam humidifier 18, which is boiled and sterilized at the time of humidification and sprays clean steam that does not contain bacteria and white powder, is optimal for a test for humans in the chamber 10 indoor environment. In addition, in FIG. 1, the personal computer 1, the controller 2, the outdoor air-conditioning condenser 4 etc. are provided as other structures.

On the other hand, the sub-chamber 20 is a room in which air taken in from the outside is temperature-controlled by an air conditioner. After adjusting the outside air temperature to a constant temperature, the sub-chamber 20 is supplied into the chamber 10 by the DC

power supply controllers

13 and 14. An air conditioner 23 is installed in the sub-chamber 20 to control the outside air taken into the sub-chamber 20 and supply a certain amount into the chamber 10. In the illustrated example, a total heat exchanger 30 is installed outside the sub-chamber 20.

The total heat exchanger 30 is a device for exchanging heat between the temperature of the outside air and the temperature of the indoor air exhausted from the sub-chamber 20, and controls the air temperature to a constant temperature to supply air to the chamber 10. ing. Even in a situation where the outside air temperature greatly deviates from the temperature in the sub-chamber 20, the temperature control efficiency in the sub-chamber 20 is increased by passing the total heat exchanger 30.

The set temperature / humidity in the chamber 10 is configured to be programmed in advance according to changes in the temperature / humidity of the outside air, so that the temperature / humidity is adapted to the living environment and has a function of reproducing daily fluctuations. Then, environmental conditions such as temperature, humidity, and time are set from the graphic panel control screen, and the temperature and humidity can be set from a minimum of 1 hour. For example, the room temperature increases from morning to afternoon during the day, and the temperature decreases from evening to night / dawn. In addition, during nighttime sleep, the indoor temperature can be reduced to conduct a metabolic test. In this way, a more accurate metabolic test can be performed in the living environment of daily life associated with daily fluctuations.

The amount of oxygen in the chamber 10 is determined by the amount of inflow during ventilation and the amount of oxygen taken by the subject. Similarly, the rate of change in carbon dioxide concentration is determined by the amount of carbon dioxide inflow from outside air and the amount of carbon dioxide produced by the subject. Therefore, in order to precisely adjust the air supply / exhaust amount in the chamber 10, this flow rate control is provided with

mass flow meters

15 and 16 for measuring a mass flow rate that is not affected by temperature and pressure (see FIG. 1). ). The

mass flow meters

15 and 16 measure the flow rate per unit time with a high accuracy of 0.5% error.

The high-precision new mass spectrometer 50 in the chamber 10 is equipped with a high-precision new mass spectrometer with an analysis accuracy of 0.001% (see FIG. 1). In the conventional human calorimeter, a mass spectrometer (Prima dB manufactured by Thermo) having an analyzer accuracy of 0.002% was used. In the present invention, in particular, a high-precision new mass spectrometer (product name: PrimaPrimPro, Prima 製 BT, manufactured by Thermo) having an analysis accuracy of 0.001% is used. At the same time, stable isotope CO2-45 is measured with high accuracy.

In addition, the conventional human calorimeter uses one type of simultaneous analysis algorithm. The algorithm used for the 24-hour metabolic test was the Henning algorithm. However, this Henning algorithm does not support short-time motion analysis. In recent years, there has been a demand for experimental studies that analyze exercise in short-term metabolic tests. Therefore, in addition to Henning's algorithm, Brown's moving average algorithm that can calculate energy consumption for a short time can be used to support a long-term metabolic test from short-time exercise (see Table 1). .

Furthermore, the conventional energy consumption is calculated from the difference between the concentration of O2 and CO2 in the open air and the concentration of O2 and oxygen produced by people in the metabolic laboratory. In this case, if the outside air and the inside air are alternately measured at a constant time, the data becomes intermittent and the continuous data cannot be evaluated. Moreover, when the outside air and the inside air are measured alternately by the analyzer, the analysis accuracy is inferior. For this reason, the outside air at a certain time before the test and the outside air at the end of the test are generally measured and averaged, and the outside air concentration during the test is used for energy calculation. However, the outdoor air concentration varies depending on the location conditions of the device. Due to this influence, when obtaining a small amount of energy consumption, fluctuations in the outside air have an effect and the energy consumption changes. Therefore, an algorithm corresponding to fluctuations in the outside air can be created by a new outside air fluctuation type algorithm calculation formula that measures the outside air every hour and obtains the energy consumption per hour so that more accurate energy consumption can be obtained. (See Table 2).

It should be noted that the present invention is not limited to the illustrated example, and design changes, material substitutions, application changes, and the like of each component can be arbitrarily performed without changing the gist of the present invention.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 PC 2 Controller 3 Measurement control part 4 Outdoor air-conditioning condenser 10 Chamber 11 Supply fan 12 Exhaust fan 13 DC power supply controller 14 DC power supply controller 15 Mass flow meter 16 Mass flow meter 17 Fan 18 Humidifier 19 Heater unit 20 Subchamber 21 Chiller unit 22 Cooler 23 Air conditioner 30 Total heat exchanger 40 Self-supporting air conditioner 50 High-precision new mass spectrometer

Claims

In an energy metabolism calorimeter measuring the metabolism of a subject from the amount of oxygen intake and carbon dioxide production of the subject contained in a chamber in which the supply and exhaust amount of air is adjusted,
A sub-chamber that controls the temperature of air taken from outside with an air conditioner;
An air supply fan for supplying air temperature-controlled in the sub-chamber to the chamber; an exhaust fan for discharging the air in the chamber to the outside;
A pair of DC power supply controllers for controlling the current values of the supply fan and the exhaust fan, respectively;
A pair of mass flowmeters that measure the amount of air supply and exhaust in the chamber,
A next-generation high-analysis human calorimeter characterized in that the current value of the DC power supply controller is adjusted to equalize the air supply / exhaust amount indicated by each mass flow meter.
A total heat exchanger for exchanging heat between the temperature of the outside air supplied into the sub-chamber and the temperature of the indoor air exhausted from the sub-chamber is installed outside the sub-chamber, and the total heat exchanger The next-generation high-analysis human calorimeter according to claim 1, wherein the outside air temperature is brought close to the temperature of room air and then supplied into the sub-chamber.
A self-supporting air conditioner that inhales the air in the chamber from below and exhausts it from the top is installed in the chamber, and the gas concentration in the chamber becomes uniform by supply and exhaust of the self-supporting air conditioner The next-generation high-analysis human calorimeter according to claim 1 configured as described above.
The next-generation high-analysis human calorimeter according to claim 1, wherein the set temperature and humidity in the chamber are configured to set a program for reproducing the living environment in accordance with daily fluctuations.
The next-generation high-analysis human calorimeter according to claim 1, wherein the mass spectrometer in the chamber is equipped with a new high-precision mass spectrometer having an analysis accuracy of 0.001%.