Thermal Accumulation in A General Car Cabin Model: C.-Y. Tseng, Y.-A. Yan, J.C. Leong
Thermal Accumulation in A General Car Cabin Model: C.-Y. Tseng, Y.-A. Yan, J.C. Leong
Thermal Accumulation in A General Car Cabin Model: C.-Y. Tseng, Y.-A. Yan, J.C. Leong
Abstract- Automobile air-conditioning systems are not very improved and have become an asset every modern
efficient even for use in conjunction with internal combustion family must own. Unfortunately, the extensive use of
engines. This problem is more critical if they are to be used in these vehicles has brought forth a tremendous change in
electric vehicles because conventional systems consume a lifestyle to the world population in terms of both
significantly more energy and therefore tremendously shortens
convenience and tragedy. Despite the mobility the
the travel distance per charge of an electric vehicle. Besides the
development of new generation air-conditioning system, one of gasoline vehicles offers their users, their smoke and
the easier remedies is to reduce the heating effects of a cabin so pollutant emission have greatly polluted the
that the requirement for air-conditioning can be minimized and environment and is believed to be one of the culprits
thus its energy consumption by the system. Current work aims to leading to recent dramatic change in climate. To remedy
identify some of the key factors that may help minimize the this, the use of fossil fuel has to be minimized if not
cooling load of an electrical vehicle. This work investigates the entirely eliminated.
solar radiation effect on a 5:1 reduced scale car cabin, whose For this reason, electric cars have lately been given
dimensions were based on the actual dimension of a Formosa a lot of attention because they, unlike gasoline cars,
Martiz. In the process of radiative heating, the temperatures in produce almost no pollution. Unfortunately, an average
the cabin were found increase at a much higher rate in the
electric car can only travel up to 100 miles (161 km) on
beginning. On the other hand, the installation of window film
and sun screen effectively reduced the rise in cabin temperature. a single electric charge. Even so, it has been reported that
Hence, their installation will significantly help saving the overall Toyota RAV4 EV can travel at most 125 miles per charge.
car energy and therefore extend an electric car travel distance In 2008, Simon Hackett and Emilis Prelgauskas even
per charge. The color of the cabin external surfaces should be drove a Tesla Roadster and had completed 313 miles
carefully chosen so that these surfaces can effectively reflect the (501 km) on a single charge in the 10th annual Global
radiative heat energy. Also, the cabin ceiling should be insulated Green Challenge. This achievement has set a new record
as much as possible to reduce the amount of heat conduction for the production of electric vehicle [1].
into the cabin space. Since the automobile air-conditioning system
consumes a lot of power, the activation of automobile
Keywords: Car cabin, Solar irradiation, Temperature air-conditioning system in any electric vehicle can
measurement, Experiment. greatly jeopardize the mileage per charge of the electric
car [2]. Regardless of how soon a highly efficient air-
© Copyright 2014 Authors - This is an Open Access article
conditioning system is developed for the electrical
published under the Creative Commons Attribution License
terms (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0).
vehicle, it is always a good practice to minimize the
Unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium dependence of the electric car users on air-conditioning
are permitted, provided the original work is properly cited. system. When there is less need for air-conditioning
system, a better mileage per charge for the electric
1. Introduction vehicle can be achieved.
In general, a reliable car is expected to be driven Fujita et. al. [3] have developed a numerical
for at least 300 miles (482 km) before another easy and simulation to predict the thermal environment of a
quick refueling. Not only so, the vehicle has to be capable simplified car cabin model under different air-
of keeping up with the flow of traffic. Since their first conditioning conditions. Their analysis took into
debut in the 18 century, all gasoline cars have been consideration of the effect of solar thermal irradiation,
the heat conduction among the car materials, the
49
The model has a dimension of 50 cm (length) x 2.3. Apparatus Arrangement
24.4 cm (width) x 14.4 cm (height). The projection height To simulate the solar thermal irradiation, a 350W
of the glass is 9 cm. The front and rear tilted angles are infrared light source was used. It was fixed at a given
35° and 45°, respectively. The glass composing the side distance d away from the cabin model illuminating at a
windows were accurately calculated through given elevation angle
Solidworks, a 3D CAD design software. These four pieces horizontal planar datum, as shown in Fig. 3.
of glasses were adhered to each other with Silicone
adhesive. The interior of the cabin model consists of a
dashboard and four seats. The dashboard and side
panels were all made of wood because it has been 2 1
reported that the heat exchange between the car body
and the car interior was very limited according to
unpublished experimental data [16]. For this same 5
reason, the engine and rear compartments of the model
4
were neglected as well. The arrangement of these
3
accessories is shown in Fig. 2.
50
where is the efficiency of the infrared light bulb (which approximately (1390±45) W/m2. This value is
normally varies between 0.90 and 0.95), P is the power comparable to a sunny condition where the solar flux is
of the light source, and d is the distance between the light about 1357 W/m2 [17].
source and the car cabin. As a matter of fact, the exact
value of d should vary from point to point depending on 3. Results and Discussions
where the light hits the surface of the car cabin. In 3.1. Effects of Irradiation Shielding
general, this distance was fixed at 30 cm in current work. 3.1.1. Tinted Glass
Based on the above values, the simulated solar flux q was Figs. 5 compare the temperature variation at
roughly 278 W/m2. Since the distance between the light different locations associated to the car cabin model. The
source and the car model was control within 0.5 cm, the blue and red lines correspond to the case whose glasses
error of the simular solar flux was 9 W/m2. Since the car are tinted or not by window film installation,
cabin in this work is a reduced model by 5:1, the solar respectively.
flux employed here is equivalent to a solar flux of
Figure 5. Temperatures for cabin with and without tinted glass: (a) front windscreen; (b) dashboard; (c) front seat bottom; and
(d) front seat back
51
It was found that except for the front windscreen 3.1.2. Others
(as in Fig. 5(a)), the increase in temperature inside the The effects of the installation of either window film
cabin could be significantly reduced if the glasses were or sun screen are compared and shown in Fig. 6.
tinted. However, it can be discovered that the
temperature at the front windscreen increased sharply
within 20 minutes after the beginning of radiative 55
heating process. After approximately 1 hour, Clear Glass
temperature increased at a much slower rate 50 Window Film
Temperature (°C)
continuously. At the dashboard, the rate of temperature S un S creen
increase was apparently different right at the beginning 45
of the heating process, as shown in Fig. 5(b). After
approximately 1 hour, the rate of temperature became 40
constant. The drop in temperature variation during the
heating process was the most significant at the front seat 35
bottom. In this study, the seats were made of wood but
completely covered by a layer of black synthetic leather. 30
In this case, although the ray from the infrared light wind dashboard front front seat front seat
source was directed towards the front seat back, the light screen legroom bottom back
was partially blocked by the ceiling causing the
temperature of the front seat bottom to be much higher Figure 6. Effect of solar irradiation shielding devices on the
cabin temperature variation
than that of the front seat back. Because of the tinted
glass, the front seat bottom temperature dropped
tremendously. As shown in Fig. 5(d), the temperature on It shows the temperatures at 5 locations in the
the front seat back surface demonstrated a trend very cabin under a consistent radiative heating through the
similar to that on the dashboard. This phenomenon is infrared light source for 2 hours. Apparently, in a cabin
very much different from that at the front seat bottom with clear glass, the temperature on the front seat
because the infrared beam had not directly shined on the bottom was the highest while that at the front legroom
front seat back. was the lowest. Obviously, the installation of these
Combining all the temperature variation in Fig. 5, devices effectively helps keeping the cabin cooler.
Between these two devices, the effect of using sun screen
if the glass was not tinted, the temperature at the front
seat bottom was consistently the highest, followed by the obviously seems to overcome that of using window film
except at the front windscreen. The temperature at the
front windscreen, the dashboard, and the front seat back.
windscreen demonstrates a completely opposite trend
This finding contradicts to the fact reported in the
literature, which indicates that the temperature of the under the effect of these devices. As a matter of fact, the
dashboard is the highest. It is remarkable to point out front windscreen is the hottest among the three
that the dashboard in this study was purposely made of scenarios. In this work, the window film was pasted on
wood. This study proves that the raise in actual the glass while the sun screen was placed inside the
dashboard temperature is in a great extent related to the cabin immediately below the front windscreen. Since the
dashboard material. If the glass was tinted, the temperatures in the cabin were the coolest when sun
temperature on the front windscreen remained the screen was installed, the placement of the sun screen had
highest followed by the dashboard, the front seat bottom, no doubt blocked the radiative heat from entering the
and the front seat back. cabin. However, the sun screen reflected the heat back to
Also discovered is that the window film the front windscreen at the same time and eventually
installation made the greatest difference in the providing more heat to the front windscreen. Hence, the
beginning of the heating process because the rate of heat placement of the sun screen beneath the front
accumulation within the cabin was greatly reduced in the windscreen caused a two stage heating process on the
first hour. After a certain period of time, the rates of front windscreen.
temperature increased with and without the installation
of window film appeared to be the same.
52
3.2. Effects of Sun Position temperature was higher at the front part than the rear
3.2.1 Elevation Angle part. In fact, this phenomenon is not supposed to happen
Fig. 7 proves that the solar elevation angle has a in actual case because the infrared light source in current
crucial influence on the temperature variations within study is comparatively small. Therefore, the infrared
the cabin. source is unable to provide a parallel beam of light. In
contrary, the irradiation from sun can be assumed
30 parallel because not only does the sun is much large in
size than the Earth but also it is very far away from us.
Temperature (°C)
25
On the other hand, the temperature at the front portion
20 of the ceiling remained unchanged while that at its rear
15 portion increased continuously.
10
3.2.2. Car Orientation
5 If the solar irradiation shines upon the cabin from
0 the side instead of the front, it is found that the variation
30 45 60 75 90 of temperature increase within the cabin space changed
Solar Elevation Angle (°) dramatically, as clearly depicted in Fig. 8.
Dashboard Front Seat Bottom Ceiling Front
Front Seat Back Rear Seat Bottom Ceiling Rear
Rear Seat Back Front
Figure 7. Effect of solar elevation angle on the cabin
Side
temperature variation Rear Seat Bottom
Rear Side Window
Location
53
at the front windscreen and front seat bottom actually and therefore allowing less heat energy to enter the
dropped significantly. At the same time, the cabin space through heat conduction mechanism. It was
temperatures at both the front seat back and the entire surprising to find that even the glasses portion of the
backseat actually increased. Generally, the amount of cabin benefit from replacing the blue exterior with silver
temperature increase on the cabin accessories was exterior. This finding somewhat suggests that, other than
clearly greater than the amount dropped particularly at the solar irradiation, the temperature differences within
the dashboard and the front seat bottom. This implies the cabin also contribute to the raise in temperature for
that there was an increase amount of heat radiated into the accessories in the cabin. In other words, thermal
the cabin simply because of the increase in window glass convection drives an effective mechanism for heat
area that allowed more thermal radiation to enter the transport from the lower portion of the cabin to the
cabin. upper portion. Based on the observation obtained here,
it is suggested that the appropriate color of electric car
3.3. Effects of Exterior Color should be chosen so that its thermal reflectivity can be
The color of the car cabin exterior was also maintained at a high level. This will evidently improve
investigated in this work. The external surface of the the thermal comfort in the electric car cabin.
cabin model was painted in either metallic blue or
metallic silver. The light source was placed in a way such 3.4. Effects of Roof Materials
that the radiative heat from the light entered the cabin The effect of the thermal properties of the car body
space through the side windows. The temperatures has also been investigated, particularly the roof of the car
recorded at 7 different locations after 4 hours of cabin. The roofs of the cabin model were made of either
radiative heating are shown in Fig. 9. a steel plate or a wooden plate. The thermal diffusivity of
stainless steel is about 3.4x10-6 m2/s to 12x10-6 m2/s
depending on the grade of the steel [18-19] while that of
Rear Seat Back Blue wood is roughly 0.161x10-6 m2/s [20]. This property
Rear Seat Bottom Silver signifies the ability of a material to conduct thermal
Rear Side Window energy relative to its ability to store thermal energy.
Location
54
cabin air temperature.
Acknowledgements
The financial support of this work by the National
Science Council of Taiwan under contract number NSC
97-3114-E-020-001- was greatly appreciated.
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