Abstract
Certain climatic conditions can lead to the misting of automotive glass, compromising safety. Therefore, vehicle demisting systems are regulated under type-approval guidelines. However, correct use of the system is determined by the resulting thermal comfort and system refinement; therefore more testing of demister performance is required.
Performance testing requires a more accurate measurement technique, as outlining demist contours with a marker pen during a climatic test, can yield variable results. An image processing technique is presented, converted from a method employed in water spray analysis of passing vehicles. This technique is first tested in a purpose built environmental facility and used in a preliminary measurement on a vehicle in a climatic chamber.
The environmental facility is also used to devise an indirect method of performance estimation, to reduce the necessary climatic testing on vehicles. Both to reduce cost, but also imply performance at a complete range of thermal and psychrometric conditions. A temperature measurement technique is presented from early thoughts on the performance estimation.