Cooling and Heating Performance Improvement of Enhanced Climate Control Seats

Abstract

The goal of this research is to investigate the application of low-cost climate control seats (CCSs) using a Heating, Ventilation and Air-conditioning system (HVAC). CCSs are being vigorously developed because demands on passengers’ thermal comfort are increasing recently. Nevertheless, current CCSs–thermo-electric devices (TED) that have been applied for both heating and cooling systems, have been used in limited luxury cars only. HVAC-type CCSs are proper for effective delivery of conditioned air due to thermal comfort and close proximity to passengers. In this study, experimental results show that HVAC-type CCSs have superior cooling performance and slightly worse heating performance than that of TED-type CCSs. In the case of HVAC-type CCSs, compared to TED-type CCSs, airflow volume was increased approximately 3.7–7.3 m3/h and surface temperature of seats was reduced by about 5 °C. And the maximum cool-down performance of HVAC-type CCSs was similar to the Base (Non HVAC-type CCSs). In addition, in passengers’ subjective evaluation, the HVAC-type CCSs, the former recorded twelve minutes to reach the comfort rate five both in cooling and heating test, meanwhile, TED-type CCSs are nineteen minutes and ten minutes each both in the cooling and heating test.