Development of a Model to Predict Build-up of Cabin Carbon Dioxide Concentrations in Automobiles for Indoor Air Quality

The author has developed a model that can be used to predict build-up of cabin carbon dioxide levels for automobiles based on many variables. There are a number of parameters including number of occupants that dictates generation of CO2 within the control volume, cabin leakage (infiltration or exfiltration) characteristics, cabin volume, blower position or airflow rate; vehicle age, etc. Details of the analysis is presented in the paper.

Finally, the developed model has been validated with experimental data. The simulated data follows the same trend and matches fairly well with the experimental data. However, there are a few challenges that we need to overcome:

1. (i)
   Developing better vehicle leakage characteristics as a function of vehicle age
2. (ii)
   Conduct a literature search to determine the actual numbers for the following variables:

   • Generation of CO₂ (ppm) by an occupant
   • Vol of CO₂ generated by an occupant’s lung (m³ /min)
   • Average lung capacity (l/min)

With autonomous vehicles on the horizon, cabin Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) will become very important factor for the vehicle control module for making decision to maintain comfortable cabin IAQ.