Numerical Investigation of Fluid Flow in an Automotive HVAC Module

Characteristics of fluid flow and heat transfer in an automotive HVAC module was investigated to analyze some important design issues. Distribution of air flow rate and air temperature at the outlets of the module and duct were analyzed by using a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) procedure. A standard k-ε turbulence model with the Upwind Differencing convection scheme was used on a properly refined computational grid. Comparison with the experimental data of air flow rate distribution and temperature at the outlets showed that the CFD procedure can be a very useful design tool for an automotive HVAC system.