ADVANCED EDDY-VISCOSITY TURBULENCE MODELLING FOR THE CAR CABIN THERMAL COMFORT ANALYSIS

This paper presents the results of the numerical analysis of the thermal comfort within a realistic car cabin geometry operated under winter operating conditions, and evaluates the obtained results against the available measurements. For an improved accuracy of the thermal comfort numerical predictions, the robust variant of the eddy-viscosity turbulence model based on elliptic relaxation has been modified, hence capturing near-wall effects in this complex geometry flow. Furthermore, to reduce the model dependency on the wall-adjacent mesh quality while maintaining appropriate near-wall turbulence behavior, this turbulent modelling framework has been complemented with the zero-value wall boundary condition and the compound wall treatment for the related turbulent quantities. The numerical analysis has been performed using a general purpose open-source code, while the numerical setup taken from the operating conditions and geometry of a car cabin case that has been experimentally investigated. The influence of the turbulence modelling on improving the car cabin thermal comfort predictions has been discussed, as compared to the standard engineering practice.