Improving Defrost Performance through Design Change in Simulation and Validating through Experimental Analysis 2022-28-0449

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.

The Objective of this paper is to optimize the design of Vehicle DUCT to improve the visibility within required timeline at driver and co-driver area under required environment conditions. Computational fluid dynamic have been carried to get the optimum design under road load and environment conditions. To verify the improvement in design, experimental testing have been carried out under same environment load conditions. CFD analysis has been done for airflow distribution and from CFD results HVAC duct vent location has been changed During the experimental test, recorded the impact of hot air injection on wind shield, defrost performance, climate control chamber condition and vehicle cabin area. Experimental studies was carried out under ambient temperature of -10°C and 800gms of water was used to frosting of windshield. Post analysis, numerical results were compared with experimental results and found good correlations between CFD and Testing results.