Energy Conservation Studies in an Air-Conditioning System of a Battery-Operated Electric Bus using CFD

Abstract

Battery-Electric Buses (BEBs) are expensive compared to diesel buses and the biggest problem in the battery operated electric vehicle is always the range. The electric consumption is very high during extreme cold and extreme hot climates. Around the world, the developing economies are deploying BEBs on a large scale with the idea of sustainable green mobility. In this context it is required to reduce the energy consumption required for BEBs during extreme cold and hot weather. For this purpose, it is required to implement energy conservation procedures to prevent the heat entry and heat loss in the HVAC system of the BEBs. For simulating the transient effect of external solar load on the air-conditioning system of the vehicle, commercial Computational Fluid Dynamics software is used. In this project, simulation of energy consumption in a BEB is carried out using ANSYS FLUENT software. An energy conservation parametric study with different types of glass and wall materials has been carried out. There is a reduction in energy consumption of 20.52 % when using hard-coated solar glass and 26.07 % reduction when polyethylene insulation is used.