Abstract
Keywords
Refrigeration, simulation, design, air-conditioning, software.
Abstract
Nowadays, the automotive air conditioning industry is impelled to design more efficient and environmentally friendly systems with a high degree of comfort for the users. In order to match these requirements, more sophisticated simulation tools are needed, especially those which can provide a sufficient level of accuracy combined with a lower calculation time and a detailed description of the systems component.
In this paper, a new computer code is presented. The main features of the program are fast calculation and accurate evaluation of the refrigeration unit performance. The paper describes the main characteristics of the global model and of the submodels of the main components considered in ART, as well as of the concerned numerical strategies, showing the capabilities of the code to assist the design of automotive air-conditioning systems.
The model takes into account all the components of the system: compressor, HEs, piping and accessories. For the main components different submodels with different levels of accuracy are included in order to allow the user to concentrate in the optimization of the desired component.
ART is able to calculate a complete refrigeration system, including the detailed modelling of the HEs, in less than 20s. Once minimally adjusted, typical predicted results show a good agreement with experimental results with maximum deviations around 5%.