CFD-Based Design Enhancements in Passenger Vehicle HVAC Module 2009-26-0058
The Heating Ventilating and Air Conditioning (HVAC) module is a single unit designed to provide passenger comfort and safety in any automotive application. In the present competitive environment cost saving and short turn-around time are two major challenges for the development of automotive HVAC modules and systems. However, to make progress in this area, a good understanding of the flow behavior within the module is essential. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tool reduces the overall development time and ensure an optimum comfort level to passengers in the vehicle.
In this paper, attempt has been made to simulate a passenger SUV HVAC module at different modes to examine flow field development and temperature distribution inside the module. All the CFD results have been compared and validated with wind tunnel obtained test results. A three dimensional model with FLUENT solver and GAMBIT, TGrid meshing software has been used throughout the study.
