Cabin Temperature Control of a Parked Car through Forced Ventilation

Abstract

Temperature level in a car parked under direct sunlight rise up to 30˚C to 40˚C above the atmospheric temperature due to green house effect of solar radiation. Thermal Comfort of the passengers in a car is of major concern for car manufacturers as well as for passenger in peak summer season. Children and pets sometimes left unattended inside a parked car, even for short duration are vulnerable to heat stress and illness. Cooling loads also tend to increase with rapid rise in temperature once the car becomes hot. The material inside the car cabin is more prone to damages due to high temperature. The main objective of present work is to control the temperature variation inside a parked car by rejecting the accumulating heat with the help of forced ventilation. This report includes the study of temperature variation inside the car cabin, while car is parked for long duration of 5 hours and for short duration of 15 minutes. Temperature variation was recorded with the help of thirteen different temperature sensors placed at different location inside the car cabin. The same was also verified with thermal imaging technique. Maximum temperature reduction is of 11-13 ˚C for cabin air, 24.4 ˚C for dashboard and 23.1 ˚C for the steering wheel. The experiments also found that air conditioner achieve the temperature of 32.7 ˚C in 15 minute from hot cabin at 50 ˚C with the proposed technique, whereas 39.9 ˚C was achieved in 15 minutes from 61 ˚C with the conventional system. The proposed system with auxiliary fans prevent the car cabin from high accumulating heat and facilitates the passenger to enter the cabin at much lower temperature.