Innovative Rear Air Blower Design Application for Improving Cabin Thermal Comfort with Improved Air Distribution and Air Quality 2020-28-0034

In recent times, overall thermal comfort and air quality requirement have increased for vehicle cabin by multifold. To achieve increased thermal comfort requirements, multiple design innovation has happened to improve HVAC performance. Most of the advance features like multizone HVAC, dedicated rear HVAC, Automatic climate control, advance air filters, and ionizers etc. lead to increase in cost, power consumption, weight, and integration issues. Besides this in the vehicle with only front HVAC, airflow is not enough to meet rear side comfort for many cars in the B/C/SUV segment.

This study aims to analyze the various parameters responsible for human thermal comfort inside a car. The focus of study is to use light weight, low power consumption, compact Rear Blower to provide passengers comfort by providing optimum airflow inline of mean radiant temperatures and cabin air temperature. The rear blower incorporates external surfaces with a set of air modifier in the direction of flow outlet and an air deflator portion just upstream of outlet portion. The set of air modifier surfaces along with the air deflector portion results in improved entrainment of cabin air towards the primary air flow generated by the blower. The impact of rear airflow on thermal comfort was analyzed by conducting a jury test with and without rear blower during a cool-down test in climatic wind tunnel lab to establish the impact of the rear blower on enhanced thermal comfort.