Air Quality improvement in air conditioner bus saloon through Carbon activated filters VE Commercial Vehicles Limited

Format:

Book

Conference/Event

Author/Creator:

Dwivedi, Ajay Kumar, author.

Contributor:

Pahade, Atul

Thakur, Jitendra

Conference Name:

Symposium on International Automotive Technology (2021-09-29 : Pune, India)

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource cm

Place of Publication:

Warrendale, PA SAE International 2021

Summary:

India being a developing nation, there is significantimprovement in road infrastructure across the country as well asthe spending power and earnings of the common man. This leads tothe new trend of customers become health and comfort conscious andwilling to pay more for better and improved transportation. Tosatisfy these demands, OEM's are developing more numbers of ACbuses. Although the OEM's are meeting this demand of quantity,the quality of air from air conditioner is still subpar. One of themain reasons for this poor air quality is because of theineffectiveness of conventional air conditioner air filters tocontrol particulate materials id est PM2.5, biological pollutants i.emicrobes, bacteria, viruses, and gaseous pollutants id est CO, CO2,SO2, NOX, O3 and VOCs in air. As per various researches, healthproblems associated with bus occupant compartment air qualityappear more frequently. In this paper, research is shown on bus airquality improvement with respect to conventional filters forimproving human health. Many people spend daily 2-6 hours of timein travel through staff AC busses, about 9-10 hours in intercitybuses and 1-2 hours in city buses, especially in urban areas. It isindoor pollutants that lead to poor inside air quality in busses,sources of indoor particle pollutants can be plastic surfaces omitsVOCs due to higher temperatures inside vehicle, when vehicle soakedin parking in summer and pollutant environment of most of thecities. Conventional filters of busses are not capable of restrainthe pollutants, hence all occupants health are prone to have healthissues, which also impacts working efficiency of occupants. Indoorair quality is the most important and comparatively overlookedparameters considered by OEMs in air conditioner design. To solvethis concern of indoor air quality, VECV had evaluated comparativeperformance of conventional and carbon activated filters in airconditioner buses in controlled environment; as well as in actualcustomer vehicles in Delhi NCRs, post festival of Diwali whenoutside air quality was in worst out of year. With this new design,carbon activated air filters were analyzed through CFD, forreduction in air flow due to increased pressure drop andcorroborated with the physical trial of a vehicle with this newdesign. The results of the average air velocity variation fromcontrolled louvers found 0.6-0.7 m\s lesser than existing design& filtration efficiency of carbon activated filters foundbetter than conventional filters for PM level 10-12.5%, HCHO 97.4%,VOC 97 - 99% respectively. VECV had also taken subjective andobjective testing of this new design filters in few of the busessold to customer. The feedback from the customers, received byVECV, was overwhelmingly positive and was encouraging

Notes:

Vendor supplied data

Publisher Number:

2021-26-0312

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license