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The aim of this paper is to establish the optimized control of external variable displacement compressor (EVDC) for the automotive air conditioning (AC) system in various operating modes. The control logic was developed, calibrated and experimentally verified on test vehicle. The developed control strategy ensures the stability of AC system while achieving the desired climate control and yielding the maximum possible fuel economy. The influence of cooling load, compressor speed and icing of evaporator have been investigated theoretically and validated with test data. The proposed control strategy ensures the safety of compressor and stabilizes the AC system under high engine torque demand, cold start conditions, engine shutdown or under electrical failures reported by on board diagnostics services (OBD). The results reveal improved thermal comfort and improvement in fuel economy with the use of established baseline control logic presented in the paper.

The total thermal management system development of electric vehicles requires identification of all inter-dependent thermal sub systems and optimized control strategy formulation. Each of the subsystems requires a favorable working environment for sustained reliability, performance and vehicle’s battery power savings. Controller Area Network (CAN) bus technology is established communication protocol for the unmatched merits it offers over wiring based systems. It coordinates all thermal devices, sensors and systems and will be more detrimental to the success of electric vehicles (EVs) in future. The functional requirements imposed by the vehicles’ batteries & charging systems, air conditioning systems, heating systems and electric powertrain raise new challenges particularly with regard to the power optimization and control.

Numerous studies considering interaction between refrigerant and reed valve motion in positive displacement compressors have been cited in literature. CFD and FEA simulation tools have allowed modeling of fully coupled interaction of fluids and moving parts [1]. The present paper describes a simplified model of a multi-cylinder reciprocating piston compressor and estimation of pressure surge at high compressor speeds. The results show that the delayed discharge valve opening and closing causes surge in pressures due to formation of pressure waves. For the chosen geometry and operating conditions in the present paper, the characteristic travel time of such waves is much shorter (~ 0.2ms) as compared to longer response time of reed valves (> 1ms) owing to stiffness and exhibit delayed opening due to others factors too like stiction effect. These pressure surges may exceed the fatigue limit of reed valves and cause failures.

Rapid advent of mobile air conditioning industry has witnessed a wide use of fixed displacement swash plate compressor due to its small size, compact structure and light weight. An accurate prediction of volumetric efficiency and power of compressor at early stages of design serves as a very useful information for designer. No work regarding the power and volumetric efficiency prediction for double headed fixed displacement swash plate compressor is reported in the existing literature. This paper presents a mathematical model for a double acting fixed displacement swash plate compressor with the objective of evaluating the shaft torque and volumetric efficiency of compressor. Shaft torque, in turn is a measure of compressor power. The geometrical description of swash plate yields a kinematic model to obtain the piston displacement as an explicit function of angle of rotation of shaft.