The Effects of Air Vents Locations on the Internal Climate Control of Vehicles

The ventilation flow inside a one-fifth-scale model of a typical mid size passenger compartment with a driver present has been investigated experimentally and computationally. In this study only one ventilation mode has been evaluated, namely the defrost mode in which air is discharged from two vents in the form of slits located along the top of the dashboard. The fluid measurements were taken using the Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) technique to acquire the velocity distribution of the model interior. The Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) analysis have been implemented and simulated by using the commercial CFD code FLUENT as a tool to investigate the flow of the compartment's interior. Comparisons of the predicted velocity field with experimental data show good agreement and were qualitatively consistent. The prediction of the velocity distribution within the compartment show that the results obtained can be useful for optimising the ventilation performance in the initial design stage to improve the thermal comfort of passengers.