Technical Paper
Effect of Glazing Thermal Conductivity on Cabin Soak Temperature
2012-04-16
2012-01-1207
Previous papers by the present authors described use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to quantify the effect of glazing thermal conductivity on steady-state heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) load under wide-ranging climate and state of motion scenarios, and to estimate the significance of this effect for electric battery performance. The CFD simulations yielded the total heat transfer between the ambient and the cabin of a model car, including radiative and convective heat transfer. The five-fold lower inherent thermal conductivity of polycarbonate relative to glass was found to reduce steady-state HVAC load by several percent in all scenarios, leading to reduced greenhouse gas emission or increased electric range, according to the type of vehicle.