Simulation Based Ventilated Seat Performance Correlation with Respect to Air-Flow and Noise 2023-01-1081

Nowadays, a greater amount of time is being spent inside vehicles for various reasons, like traffic, greater distances being traveled, and leisure rides. As a result, better comfort and convenience features are added to make the driver and passenger feel at ease. Thermal comfort and acoustic isolation are the primary parameters looked into by both the customers and the original equipment manufacturers. One such feature offered to improve passenger thermal comfort is a ventilated seat, with or without an air-conditioning system. This is also because seats are one of the primary touch points inside the vehicle. Front row seats are more likely to be exposed to external solar loading through the front windshield. Also, luxury features are now being adopted as a standard to improve the passenger experience inside the vehicle. Standard component level evaluation of ventilated seats involves air flow and noise measurements to determine their performance. A simulation based performance prediction of these parameters would provide quick and more insightful results. Current work utilizes a transient based solver—the Lattice Boltzmann Method—to correlate the performance parameters for ventilated seats. The performance parameters include; seat level airflow delivery and velocities along with the passenger ear level noise prediction. The simulation results correlate well with the test, which can be used for deployment for providing design and performance related counter-measures.