Simulation Based Ventilated Seat Performance Correlation with Respect to Airflow and Noise

Nowadays, a higher amount of time is being spent inside the vehicles on account of varied reasons like traffic, longer distances being travelled and leisure rides. As a result, better comfort and convenience features are added to make the driver and passenger feel at ease. Thermal comfort and acoustic isolation are the primary parameters looked at by both the customers and the original equipment manufacturers. Seats are one of the primary touch points inside the vehicle. Perspiration caused at the contact patch areas between the seats and passengers leads to high thermal discomfort. A ventilated seat, with or without an air-conditioning system, is one such attribute offered to improve passenger thermal comfort. Ventilation becomes even more essential for front-row seats, as these are more likely to be exposed to external solar loading through the front windshield. This luxury feature of seat ventilation is now being adopted as a standard to improve the passenger's thermal comfort experience inside the vehicle.

Standard component level evaluation of ventilated seats involve airflow and noise measurements to determine its performance. A simulation based performance prediction of these parameters would provide quick and more insightful results. Current work utilizes a transient based solver – Lattice Boltzmann Method – to correlate the performance parameters for ventilated seats. The performance parameters include seat-level airflow delivery and velocity, along with passenger ear level noise prediction. The simulation results correlates well with the test, which can be used for deployment for providing design and performance related counter-measure.