Abstract
Automobile air-conditioning systems are not very efficient even for use in conjunction with internal combustion engines. This problem is more critical if they are to be used in electric vehicles because conventional systems consume a significantly more energy and therefore tremendously shortens the travel distance per charge of an electric vehicle. Besides the development of new generation air-conditioning system, one of the easier remedies is to reduce the heating effects of a cabin so that the requirement for air-conditioning can be minimized and thus its energy consumption by the system. Current work aims to identify some of the key factors that may help minimize the cooling load of an electrical vehicle. This work investigates the solar radiation effect on a 5:1 reduced scale car cabin, whose dimensions were based on the actual dimension of a Formosa Martiz. In the process of radiative heating, the temperatures in the cabin were found increase at a much higher rate in the beginning. On the other hand, the installation of window film and sun screen effectively reduced the rise in cabin temperature. Hence, their installation will significantly help saving the overall car energy and therefore extend an electric car travel distance per charge. The color of the cabin external surfaces should be carefully chosen so that these surfaces can effectively reflect the radiative heat energy. Also, the cabin ceiling should be insulated as much as possible to reduce the amount of heat conduction into the cabin space.
Highlights
A reliable car is expected to be driven for at least 300 miles (482 km) before another easy and quick refueling
Based on the experimental findings of this work, several important conclusions can be made to assist the improvement of future electric car designs
These findings suggest that electric car windows should at least be tinted whenever possible
Summary
A reliable car is expected to be driven for at least 300 miles (482 km) before another easy and quick refueling. Since the usage of conventional automobile airconditioning systems are highly inefficient for electric vehicles, the authors deeply feel that, while new generation vehicle air-conditioning system may take a much longer time to develop, a quick and simple yet practical approach is to reduce the total amount heat entering the cabin of an electric vehicle This motivates current work whose objective is to study the increase in cabin temperature under the influence of prolonged solar irradiation. The dashboard and side panels were all made of wood because it has been reported that the heat exchange between the car body and the car interior was very limited according to unpublished experimental data [16] For this same reason, the engine and rear compartments of the model were neglected as well. This value is comparable to a sunny condition where the solar flux is about 1357 W/m2 [17]
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