A Co-Simulation Methodology for Predicting Occupant Thermal Comfort for Cabin Cooldown and Warmup Scenarios

Achieving and maintaining thermal comfort for vehicle cabin cool down and warm up is a challenging task. Keeping the passenger comfortable in all driving scenarios needs a properly sized system. Predicting thermal comfort in a virtual environment consisting of thermal system and vehicle cabin gives us the opportunity to size the system components to maintain thermal comfort. These studies could then be extended to develop comfort-based control strategies that help us achieve a system optimized for performance. The present study focuses on developing a co-simulation methodology for predicting thermal comfort in a vehicle for hot and cold ambient conditions. Key to proper system sizing would be to capture the cabin thermal loads accurately. Traditionally, either a 1D or 3D cabin model is used for assessment of thermal comfort. Both these cabin models have their own applications and limitations. A 1D-3D cabin model along with the developed co-simulation methodology in this work addresses the limitations seen with traditional approaches. The 1D-3D cabin model is developed and validated for cooldown and warmup scenarios for air temperatures throughout the cabin.