Cabin Heat-Up Thermal Assessment for Human Comfort in Passenger Car Tata Technologies, Limited

Format:

Book

Conference/Event

Author/Creator:

Baghel, Devesh Kumar, author.

Contributor:

Dimble, Nilesh

Kandekar, Ambadas

Kumar, Ravi

Conference Name:

Symposium on International Automotive Technology (2026) (2026-01-28 : Pune, India)

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource cm

Place of Publication:

Warrendale, PA SAE International 2026

Summary:

The HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and Air conditioning) system is designed to fulfil the thermal comfort requirement inside a vehicle cabin. Human thermal comfort primarily depends upon an occupant's physiological and environmental condition. Vehicle AC performance is evaluated by mapping air velocity and local air temperature at various places inside the cabin. There is a need to have simulation methodology for cabin heating applications for cold climate to assess ventilation system effectiveness considering thermal comfort. Thermal comfort modelling involves human manikin modeling, cabin thermal model considering material details and environmental conditions using transient CAE simulation.Present study employed with LBM (Lattice-Boltzmann Method) based PowerFLOW solver coupled with finite element based PowerTHERM solver to simulate the cabin heat up. Human thermal comfort needs physiological modelling; thus, the in-built Berkeley human comfort library is used in simulation. Human thermal modelling includes metabolic rate of heat production with effects of clothing in external ambient conditions. Once human thermal modelling in a controlled environment stabilized, LBM-based solver used to predict the convective heat transfer phenomenon. Thereafter, conduction and radiation effects were solved using a coupling approach in PowerTHERM.Physical tests conducted in a controlled environment of climate chambers. Simulation results obtained correlated with experimental data. Occupants' thermal comfort evaluated using the Berkeley comfort model. The current process further highlights the impact of heater capacity variation on in-cabin air temperature and passenger comfort level. The proposed method is helpful in thermal comfort prediction for passenger vehicles at cold ambient comfort requirements, heater capacity, and airflow delivery system effectiveness. Current process is found more effective where heater capacity and thermal comfort balance prediction are sensitive to two heaters, discussed in this paper

Notes:

Vendor supplied data

Publisher Number:

2026-26-0408

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license