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The objective of this work is to perform a computer model based sensitivity analysis of parameters of an automotive air conditioning system to identify the critical parameters. Design of Experiment (DOE) and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) techniques have been used to identify the critical parameters and their relative effects on the air conditioning system performance. The sensitivity analysis has been verified by running similar tests on an air conditioning system test stand (AC Test Stand).

Buffeting is a wind noise of high intensity and low frequency in a moving vehicle when a window or sunroof is open and this noise makes people in the passenger compartment very uncomfortable. In this paper, side window buffeting was simulated for a typical SUV using the commercial CFD software Fluent 6.0. Buffeting frequency and intensity were predicted in the simulations and compared with the corresponding experimental wind tunnel measurement. Furthermore, the effects of several parameters on buffeting frequency and intensity were also studied. These parameters include vehicle speed, yaw angle, sensor location and volume of the passenger compartment. Various configurations of side window opening were considered. The effects of mesh size and air compressibility on buffeting were also evaluated. The simulation results for some baseline configurations match the corresponding experimental data fairly well.