Sensitivity Analysis of Energy Conversion for Effective Energy Consumption, Thermal Comfort, and Air Quality within Car Cabin

There are interactive performances of climatic control within a car cabin in energy consumption, thermal comfort, and air quality. This paper presents sensitivity analysis of those performance indices coupled with mathematical models of air conditions within a car cabin. Through sensitivity analysis, controlled variables are identified for the most influence on energy consumption, thermal comfort, and air quality in effective climatic control. The performance indices are defined from energy consumption of air conditioning unit, predicted mean vote, and concentration of carbon dioxide while mathematical models of air conditions within a car cabin are developed to determine quantitative impact from controlled variables under given operating conditions. Good agreement of simulated results with experimental data is reported for model validation of a sedan car. Some conclusive comments in case studies are recommended from the proposed methodology. In parking, reducing windshield transmissivity by 5% using cover decreases predicted mean vote index by 0.9%. During driving, amount of supply air and temperature can be adjusted to improve thermal comfort whereas energy consumption increases. It is found that decreasing temperature by 5% is superior since corresponding impact on energy consumption is less than increasing amount of supply air by 5% while a predicted mean vote can be decreased by 20.4%. On the other hands, increasing amount of supply air is the most effective way when thermal comfort and air quality are needed to be improved. Increasing amount of supply air by 5% results in changes of the predicted mean vote index and concentration of carbon dioxide by -17.5%, and -0.74%, respectively.