Prediction of air conditioning flow in the cabin of vehicle using numerical simulation

In order to predict the passenger thermal comfort at an early stage of development, numerical simulation is effective. However, because of the difficulty in setting up thermal boundary conditions, the heat transfer model and so on, it is difficult to predict the temperature distribution in the cabin accurately. It is also difficult to produce a comfortable environment in the cabin by using numerical simulation, because the relationship between the passenger thermal comfort and the distribution of flow and temperature is not clear. In this paper, an attempt is made to predict the cabin temperature distribution. At first, the simulation in the cabin was performed by using STAR-CD. But it predicted low heat transfer in comparison with the experimental result. So, it was tried to integrate the better heat transfer model into STAR-CD. The result of this simulation was similar with the experimental result in the distribution of flow and temperature. As a result, the effectiveness of this model was confirmed. Furthermore, based on the result of this simulation and experiment, it was attempted to clarify the relationship between the passenger thermal comfort and the distribution of temperature.