Abstract
This work describes two numerical programs that simulate the vehicle thermal behaviour and evaluate the human and clothing thermal responses in transient conditions. The environmental inputs of human thermal comfort model, that evaluates the global thermal sensation level inside the passengers compartment, are calculated by the vehicle thermal behaviour model.
The vehicle thermal behaviour multinode model, that calculates the vehicle temperature field, is based not only in energy balance integral equations for the air inside the different compartments, window glasses, interior bodies located inside each compartment and vehicles main bodies, but also in the mass balance integral equations for the air inside the compartment. The human body comfort multinode model, that calculates the human body and clothing temperature field and the thermal comfort level, is based not only in the energy balance integral equations for the human body tissue, arterial and venous blood and clothing, but also in mass balance integral equations, for the blood, transpired water in the skin surface and clothing.
The first validation preliminary texts of the vehicle model, done in a real car when it was immobilized, and some experimental tests made with human beings in laboratory with environmental conditions controlled, showed good agreement between the numerical and experimental results.
The models were used to evaluate the global thermal comfort level in a passengers compartment when a car, subjected to the solar radiation, running without and with forced air ventilation system.