A Numerical Study of Natural Convection Inside an Automobile Compartment Due to Solar Radiation

In summer, the temperature of a parked automobile compartment increases extremely high under a sunny condition. Investigation of this fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics is very important for controlling the effect of major design parameters. This paper address the behavior of fluid flow through convection and air temperature inside a car parked in the sun. The numerical solution was done by a new and operation friendly CFD code – SC/Tetra with a full scale model of a SM3 car and turbulence was modeled by the standard k-ε equation. It can be seen that solar radiation is an important parameter to raise the compartment temperature above the ambient temperature during summer. Numerical analysis of the three-dimensional model predicts a detailed description of fluid flow and temperature distribution driven by the incoming solar radiation (insoaltion) in the passenger compartment.