Numerical and Experimental Study on Ventilation Panel Models in a Subway Passenger Compartment

Abstract

The internal flow field study of car compartments is an important step in railroad vehicle design and optimization. The flow field profile has a significant impact on the temperature distribution and passenger comfort level. Experimental studies on flow field can yield accurate results but carry a high time and computational cost. In contrast, the numerical simulation method can yield an internal flow field profile in less time than an experimental study. This study aims to improve the computational efficiency of numerical simulation by adapting two simplified models—the porous media model and the porous jump face model—to study the internal flow field of a railroad car compartment. The results provided by both simplified models are compared with the original numerical simulation model and with experimental data. Based on the results, the porous media model has a better agreement with the original model and with the experimental results. The flow field parameters (temperature and velocity) of the porous media model have relatively small numerical errors, with a maximum numerical error of 4.7%. The difference between the numerical results of the original model and those of the porous media model is less than 1%. By replacing the original numerical simulation model with the porous media model, the flow field of subway car compartments can be calculated with a reduction of about 25% in computing resources, while maintaining good accuracy.