Abstract
Passenger comfort in cars depends on appropriate function of the cabin HVAC system. A great attention is therefore paid to the effective function of automotive vents and proper formation of the flow behind the ventilation outlet. The article deals with the visualization of air flow from the automotive benchmark vent. The visualization was made for two different shapes of the inlet channel connected to the benchmark vent. The smoke visualization with the laser knife was used. The influence of the shape of the inlet channel to the airflow direction, its enlargement and position of air flow axis were investigated.
Highlights
Human comfort in new cars, where thermal comfort plays an important role, is of prime importance nowadays
The output power of the laser knife was set to 0.8 W and its light sheet was positioned to the axis of the air stream
As for the vertical plane XZ and the inclination angle Ȧ: the vanes were adjusted to the angle of 0°, the actual stream axis angle was -3.90° with the elbow and -4.07° without the elbow
Summary
Human comfort in new cars, where thermal comfort plays an important role, is of prime importance nowadays. The design of the car cabin and its dashboard provides less space available for the inlet ductwork that brings the air to the car cabin. Due to this reason it is difficult to design proper shapes of the air vents which affect the air flow behind the air vents. This paper deals with the visualization of air flow from the outlet element of the car ventilation system, which is virtually the adjustable air channel and the benchmark vent (a specially designed automotive vent of the car dashboard, see Figure 1). The temperatures in the ventilation system inlet and in front of the orifice plate flowmeter were measured with the use of Pt100 resistance thermometers
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