Testing and evaluation methods for thermal comfort of air conditioning in automobile cabins

Under the premise of saving energy, optimizing the thermal environment of automobile cabins and improving the occupant comfort is one of the research focuses of automotive thermal management. With the growth of the market share of electric vehicles, the thermal comfort of automobile cabins has received more attention. This paper reviews the methods for evaluating the thermal comfort of automobile cabin environments. Firstly, the transient non-uniform characteristic of the automobile cabin thermal environment and its correlation with personnel thermal comfort are described. Secondly, the principles of various thermal comfort models are presented, including the PMV-PPD model, the equivalent homogeneous temperature (EHT) model, and the multi-node multi-segment thermal comfort model, and the applicability of the model input/output parameters to the thermal comfort evaluation of automobile cabins is compared and analysed. Thirdly, the automobile cabin thermal environment testing and simulation methods are presented, focusing on comparing the applicability of the warm body dummy and the air conditioning dummy in the automobile cabin thermal environment evaluation. Finally, based on the evaluation method proposed in this paper, a real-vehicle test is conducted using the air conditioning dummy to evaluate the thermal comfort of the automobile cabin environment.