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Less weight, structural integrity, good dynamic behavior, material selection, performance & energy consumption are important parameters while designing A/C components for EV applications. Structural integrity and dynamic behavior of these components is predicted by conducting dynamic analysis of A/C unit under standard vibration load test conditions. Material selection is another important point while designing A/C and simulation helps designer for proper material selection at initial design stage. Achieving required cooling capacity with less compressor power is another important factor while designing A/C unit and this is done by proper design changes on condenser and evaporator side with proper compressor selection. For this, CFD analysis helps to predict the air flow accurately with the given design parameters.

Vehicles wind shield are designed to provide a clear visibility in winter as its one of the most important requirement for the comfortable and safe journey. In extreme winters, wind shield of vehicle is covered with layer of ice and if frosted happened, results in reduces the visibility distance. To increase the visibility and providing the comfort to driving the vehicle, heater is used in vehicle as an integrated part of vehicle HVAC System. When the blower air passes through heater, air temperature gets increased. When the hot air is injected through grill at designed angle of injection and at selected air velocity on wind shield surface, ice on wind shield melting due to convection heat transfer phenomenon and thus achieved a clear windshield glass and clear visibility at driver and at co-driver area.

Heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems play a crucial role in our day-to-day activities. With rise in global warming, leading to climate change, HVAC unit is the need of the hour. With average temperatures on the rise, it is quite imperative that the unit provides better thermal comfort to the passengers. Off-road vehicles like tractor, is also no exclusion. Tractor drivers have to experience adverse weather conditions out in the open field. Thus it is quite fundamental that sufficient airflow reaches every point inside the driver cabin, ensuring proper cool-down. To ensure proper distribution of airflow inside the cabin, optimization of HVAC unit needs to be properly carried out. The present study shows how an HVAC of an off-road vehicle is properly optimized with the help of Computational Fluid Dynamics. STAR-CCM+ v2021.2.1 is used as solver for the simulation.

The automotive industry is a gigantic industry as millions of vehicles are running on the road and it’s growing at a rapid rate. The emissions are causing various global problems such as global warming, green house effects, air pollutions etc. due to the use of fossil fuels in abundance. This drives to think for alternative solutions, which are eco-friendly and having less or no emissions. The electric vehicles (EVs) are the most reliable solution as it is having high performance and efficiency with zero emissions. The evolution of EVs has fuelled the two-wheeler EVs industry to flourish at a fast pace. Li-ion battery and traction motor are the most important components in two-wheeler EVs and the thermal management for battery is more important for higher efficiency with longer life and better reliability along with the traction motor to have long range and better durability.

With the growing demand in passenger comfort and enhanced safety and high competitiveness in the automotive segment, automotive manufacturers are keen to launch the product flawlessly within short period of time. In that regard one of the areas related to safety of passengers which is windshield deicing, requires lot of attention and to be developed and certified well before the product launch. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) helps in this regard to come up quickly with a feasible design solution. But with the conventional method of doing deicing requires lot of time and high cell count. Hence there is a requirement of developing a methodology which will shorten the simulation time and thus leading to shorter development time. One such development took place is in the multiphase models in CFD. The present study focuses in introducing a novel methodology for predicting the transient deicing pattern in an automotive windshield.

With the transition from Internal Combustion Engines Vehicles (ICEVs) to Electric or Hybrid Electric Vehicles (EVs/HEVs), most of the system aggregates and system parameters need to be redefined and recalibrated. This is mainly due to the change in power and transmission system. One of the critical system aggregates is heating ventilating and air-conditioning (HVAC) system as it directly impacts the car interior noise (other than passenger comfort) across all speed ranges. At low speed, interior noise becomes more annoying due to HVAC and electromagnetic noise from traction motor. However, at high speed other auxiliary noise sources are added up to the overall noise sources. Hence it becomes necessary to design and develop the HVAC system which should produce no abnormal noise and overall noise becomes low. The advancement of numerical simulation plays an important role in finalizing the HVAC design and also provides better insight of the products.

Indian Railways, often described as the “transport lifeline of the nation”, is the fourth largest railway network in the world, from suburbs to urban transit, the Indian rail network covers the length and breadth of the country. To make the journeys easier and memorable it is very much important to provide adequate comfort and easy access to every facilitates. For better comfort inside the coach as well as in the drivers’ cabin, air-conditioning system has to be quite effective and energy efficient. While it is too expensive to go with prototypes at the initial stage, numerical simulation comes very handy in helping and optimizing the unit and come out with viable design concept within very short time. The present study provides a methodology for the numerical simulation of a drivers’ cabin AC to determine the volumetric airflow rate. The unit is designed for the drivers’ cabin and it is mounted on roof.

The rapid evolution of electric vehicles (EVs) has considerably forced the automotive industry to design compact and highly efficient heat exchangers due to low-temperature applications. The plate type heat exchanger (Also known as “Chiller” in automotive industry) is one of the most important components in EVs thermal management systems. It is a type of heat exchanger, which uses metallic plates arranged like a staggered sandwiched structure and brazed together to exchange heat between two working fluids. The heat transfer between the plates occurs due to highly compact structural design as compare to any conventional heat exchangers. The chiller is having very large surface area, which is exposed to the working fluids as the distribution happens all across the plates. The chillers are more suitable design for transferring heat between ranges of working fluids pressure varying from low to high. Various types of welded, semi-welded plate heat exchangers are available in the market.

Vehicle air conditioning and heating system is one of the most important part of an automobile system. Computational fluid Dynamics (CFD) is widely used to predict air flow rates and distribution in such Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC). Commercial CFD codes such as FLUENT and STAR-CCM+ are widely used in simulation for industrial research. But usage of these software comes with a heavy cost. Cost is one such parameter which industries try to bring down, without compromising on the deliverables in product development. OpenFOAM is one such license free, open source code that can be used to modify and compile its code based on the needs and the physics of the problem in hand. This study assessed the performance of airflow magnitude and distribution in an HVAC using OpenFOAM. The results between STAR-CCM+ and OpenFOAM were compared in terms of grid-independent solutions using various scalar and vector plots.

Radiators are types of heat exchangers, which are used to transfer the heat from one fluid to another fluid. It is mainly used in automobile engine cooling systems and the radiators are the major source of heat rejection from the system by cooling the working fluid (generally water or glycol mixture). The application of radiators in the two-wheeler vehicle segment plays a vital role in increasing engine efficiency by maintaining the optimum temperature inside the engine assembly. As the technology advances with higher power requirements for the two-wheeler vehicle segment, thermal management of combustion engine becomes a critical part of it, resulting in the advancement of radiator technology in terms of compactness and thermal performance. In order to cater to the increasing demand for high-powered engines, performance optimization of two-wheeler radiators becomes an important aspect of design.

High vehicle emission resulting in increasing the air pollution day by day has challenged and forced the automotive industry to look for alternate and more environment friendly technologies. The transformation of the automotive industry in near future towards green energy solutions has also fuelled the technological advancement in this industry. In order to fulfil this requirement, Electrical Vehicles (EVs) have emerged as the best solution available till now. It has become very popular because of the zero emission and higher wheel-drive efficiency. The vehicle has some limitations in terms of performance, cost, lifespan & battery safety. The EVs have lithium ion batteries incorporated to cater the drive power requirement. In order to maximize the vehicle performance, thermal management of the batteries becomes very critical. The battery thermal management system (BTMS) has crucial role in controlling the thermal behaviour of the batteries.

With the global competitiveness in automotive segment, vehicle manufacturers are facing steep competition in reducing the overall cost, development time without compromising the performance and quality. So the development of each aggregate, system and sub-system also need to be faster than ever before. Being an automotive AC manufacturer, it is quite obvious that the AC system should also be developed within short span of time. However it is quite imperative to meet or exceed the cooling requirement. Hence a novel approach of combining the 1-dimensional (1D) and 3-dimensional (3D) simulation is developed in order to evaluate and predict the cabin cool down before the actual prototypes are being made. The present study employs the combined approach of predicting the system level performance through 1-D simulation and predicting the airflow field inside the vehicle using 3D simulation. System level simulation was carried out in Kuli software.

The aim of this paper is to analyze Train Driver Cabin AC kit to improve performance of Rail AC unit. First CFD analysis has been carried out on the existing design to find the airflow on the condenser side. Based on the analysis result, design modification has been done to improve the air flow on the condenser side and thereby improving the cooling capacity of the unit. CAE analysis has been carried out to strengthen mount brackets of condenser fan. With the design changes, there is significant improvement found on the structural integrity. Modal frequency improved and dynamic stress been reduced. Based on final modified design, proto was developed, tested and found OK which further verified with CAE/CFD results.CAE analysis has been carried out using ABAQUS/Hypermesh software and CFD using STAR CCM+.

Maintaining thermal comfort is one of the key areas in vehicle HVAC design wherein airflow distribution inside the cabin is one of the important elements in deciding comfort sensation. However, the energy consumption of air conditioning system needs to stay within the efficient boundaries to efficiently cool down the passenger cabin otherwise the vehicle energy consumption may get worsened to a great extent. One approach to optimize this process is by using numerical methods while developing climate systems. The present paper focuses on the numerical study of cabin aiming and cabin cool-down of a passenger car by using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The main goal is to investigate the cabin aiming with a view to figure out the minimum average velocity over the passengers at all vent positions. Cabin aiming ensures substantial amount of airflow reaches to the passengers as well as every corners of the cabin across the wide climatic range.

Adequate visibility through the vehicle windshield over the entire driving period is of paramount practical significance. Thin water film (fog) that forms on the windshield mainly during the winter season would reduce and disturb the driver’s visibility. This water film originates from condensing water vapor on inside surface of the windshield due to low outside temperatures. Primary source of this vapor is the passenger’s breath, which condenses on the windshield. Hot and dry air which impinges at certain velocity and angle relative to the windshield helps to remove the thin water film (defogging) and hence improves driver’s visibility. Hence a well-designed demisting device will help to eliminate this fog layer within very short span of time and brings an accepted level of visibility. An attempt is made here to design and develop a demisting device for a commercial vehicle with the help of numerical and analytical approach and later on validated with experimental results.