Citation

Zhang H, Dai L, Xu G, Li Y, Chen W, Tao WQ. Appl. Therm. Eng. 2009; 29(10): 2022-2027.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2008.10.005

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

It is important to analyze the temperature and air-flow field inside the passenger compartment to ameliorate the amenity and decrease energy consumption. This paper uses commercial software FLUENT to simulate 3-D temperature distributions and flow field in a compartment with or without passengers. Validated by the experimental data, the numerical model is used to investigate the influence of different factors on the thermal comfort and the energy consumption. In the first paper, the test conditions and the numerical models are described in details. The measured and predicted transient temperatures are compared and good agreement is obtained. In addition, the air temperature distribution in a steady test situation is also numerically predicted by both transient and steady model, and the agreements between the three sets of data are satisfactorily, showing the reliability of the models. In the companion part of the two papers the simulated effects of several operational conditions will be presented.

KW: Hyperthermia in automobiles

Language: en

Keywords

Air-flow field; Automobile air conditioner; Environment simulation test; Numerical simulation; Temperature field; Thermal comfort (amenity)