Thermal study of the variation and distribution of temperature in the cabin of a car exposed to direct solar radiation

Abstract

The accumulation of thermal energy inside the car is the result of heat transfer generated by solar radiation that permeates through the windshield, walls and roof of the vehicle. It has been determined that the internal temperature of the car cabin outdoors, reaches up to 80 °C on a sunny day. To design a heat extraction system, applicable to enclosures that are under the direct effect of the sun’s rays, it is necessary to know the thermal mass, the temperature distribution and the cooling load; the objective of this work was to study the variation and distribution of temperature in the cabin of a car exposed to direct solar radiation. To design a heat extraction system, applicable to enclosures that are under the direct effect of the sun’s rays, it is necessary to know the thermal mass, the temperature distribution and the cooling load; the objective of this work was to study the variation and distribution of temperature in the cabin of a car exposed to direct solar radiation. To achieve the objective, a simulated computational model was created in ANSYS and a prototype was developed to experimentally measure the internal and external environmental conditions of a car cabin. The variation of the temperature inside the cabin of a vehicle exposed to the sun was studied throughout the day, it was evaluated during 15 days with temperatures that oscillated between 22 and 34 °C, with the windows of the vehicle closed. The results obtained, both for the computational model and for the experimental measurements, show that a variation of the internal temperature of the vehicle is represented at a heating rate that depends directly on the intensity of the radiation from the external environment and is distributed with different intensities according to the physical and environmental conditions of the model.