Evaluation of thermal conditions inside a vehicle cabin

Abstract

There are several important factors influencing road accidents. Temperature inside the vehicle is ranked third after alcohol and seat belts. For this reason, maintaining thermal comfort in the passenger compartment is essential. Thermal comfort is provided by the air conditioning system, which consumes much energy. In the case of electrically powered vehicles, this results in a shorter range. Optimization of such systems is therefore required. This paper proposes a set of equations describing the thermal conditions inside the vehicle, which are the result of appropriate energy balances for air, interior elements, and glass. Variable transmission conditions are included for transparent materials exposed to short and long wave radiation. The study focused on unsteady air-conditioning of the vehicle interior. The measurement data was compared with the results obtained through numerical solutions of the proposed set of equations.