Large-scale PIV measurements of ventilation flow inside the passenger compartment of a real car

Abstract

Most vehicles have a heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning device that makes the environment in the passenger compartment comfortable. The improvement of climatic comfort is crucial not only to passenger comfort but also to driving safety. Therefore, a better understanding of the flow characteristics of ventilation inside the passenger compartment is essential. Most of the previous studies investigated the ventilation flow using computational fluid dynamics calculations or scale-down water-model experiments. In this study, the ventilation flow inside the passenger compartment of a real commercial automobile was investigated using a particle image velocimetry velocity measurement technique. Under real operating conditions, the velocity fields were measured at several vertical planes for various ventilation modes. The experimental data obtained from this study can be used to understand the detailed flow characteristics in the passenger compartment of a real car and to validate numerical predictions.