Use of Infra-Red Thermography for Automotive Climate Control Analysis

In this paper, several automotive climate control applications for IR thermography are described. Some of these applications can be performed using conventional IR techniques. Others, such as visualizing the air temperature distribution within the cabin, at duct exits, and at heater and evaporator faces, require new experimental methods. In order to capture the temperature distribution within an airstream, a 0.25-mm-thick (0.01 inch) fiberglass screen is used. This screen can be positioned perpendicular or parallel to the flow to obtain three-dimensional spatial measurements. In many cases, the air flow pattern can be inferred from the resulting temperature distribution, allowing improved air distribution designs. In all cases, significant improvement in the speed, ease, and quantity of temperature distribution information can be realized with thermography as compared to conventional thermocouple array techniques. Comparisons are presented between IR thermography images and both thermocouple measurements and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) predictions.