In the current landscape of commercial vehicle industry, fuel economy is one of the major parameter for fleet owner’s profitability as well as greenhouse gasses emission. Less fuel efficiency results in more fuel consumption; use of conventional fuel in engines also makes environment polluted. The rapid growth in fuel prices has led to the demand for technologies that can improve the fuel efficiency of the vehicle.
Phase change material (PCMs) for Thermal energy storage system (TES) is one of the specific technologies that not only can conserve energy to a large extent but also can reduce emission as well as the dependency on convention fuel. There is a great variety of PCMs that can be used for the extensive range of temperatures, making them attractive in a number of applications in automobiles.
The objective of this paper is to study the behavior & performance of a PCM-based cooling system for automotive refrigerated containers over a period from dispatch to delivery and at different ambient conditions (temperatures). The fundamental objective of this technology is to provide the desired temperature to vehicle refrigerated containers with least energy consumption.
This paper deals with the evaluation of various performance parameters which has been tested during Vehicle testing. The testing is done by simulating duty cycle of real vehicle usage in order to test system with actual field conditions. The test results were analyzed and optimized for further improvement of the system.