CFD simulation for the improvement of thermal comfort in cars

Abstract

Thermal comfort is an important criterion when choosing a car and, for this reason, it has assumed a high priority in vehicle design. In order to assess comfort not only qualitatively but also quantitatively, Ferrari, in close cooperation with the University of Pisa (Italy), has defined thermal comfort indices and made comprehensive evaluations of the general aspects of thermal comfort. For various reasons, an experimental approach is not practical, especially for the thermo-aerodynamic evaluations required. The calculations were therefore performed using the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software Fluent from Ansys.