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The penetration of rainwater through the heating ventilation and air conditioning system (HVAC) of a vehicle directly affects the provision of thermal comfort within the vehicle passenger compartment. Present vehicle designs restrict considerably the air-management processes due to reduced space and tighter packaging. The motivation for the study is to get an insight into factors affecting the water ingress phenomenon when a stationary vehicle is subjected to water loading such as heavy rain when parked or waiting in a traffic light or when in a car wash. The test programme made use of a compact closed circuit full-scale automotive climatic wind tunnel that is able to simulate wind, rain and road inclination. The tunnel was developed as part of the collaborative research between the Flow Diagnostics Laboratory (FDL) of the University of Nottingham and Visteon Climate Control Systems [1].

The safety and comfort aspects of passenger vehicles are significant sales argument and have become a topic of rising importance during the development process of a new vehicle. The objective of this study is to compare the performance of several current model vehicles, highlight the drawbacks of current defrosting/demisting systems and point the way to improved passive mechanisms. The investigation is experimental. The work presented is an experimental and numeric investigation of the clear-up pattern of a current vehicle fitted with an electrically heated windshield. Nottingham FDL climatic wind tunnel is used to perform the experimental tests. The clear up pattern developed utilising the vehicle defroster system is digitally captured and compared to the clear up pattern developed utilising the electrical heated windshield. Moreover, the clear up pattern developed using the vehicle defroster system is used to validate a computational model.

The analysis of airflow in an automotive HVAC cowl box is complicated by the cross sectional variations and abrupt changes in airflow direction. In this study, the complex three-dimensional turbulent flow found in a generic road vehicle cowl box is investigated experimentally and computationally. An optical anemometer is used to acquire the experimental data within a white metal sheet of a cowl box. The results are then used to validate and tune a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) numerical cowl model.

The analysis of airflow in a road vehicle HVAC splitter duct is complicated by the cross sectional variations and abrupt changes in airflow direction. In this study, the complex three-dimensional turbulent airflow found in a generic automotive HVAC splitter duct is investigated experimentally and computationally. An optical anemometer is used to acquire the experimental data within the HVAC duct. The results are then used to validate and tune a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) numerical model.

The analysis of airflow in an automotive HVAC cowl box is complicated by the cross sectional variations and abrupt changes in airflow direction. In this study, the complex three-dimensional turbulent flow found in a generic road vehicle cowl box is investigated experimentally and computationally. An optical anemometer is used to acquire the experimental data within a white metal sheet of a cowl box. The results are then used to validate and tune a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) numerical cowl model.