Thermal Comfort Analysis Inside of a Recreational Vehicle

Abstract

The focus of the current study is on the numerical investigation of airflow and temperature distribution in a representative Class B Recreational Vehicle (RV) with the objective of optimizing the inlet and exhaust vent configurations to enhance thermal comfort levels. The Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations are carried out using ANSYS FLUENT. The CFD model of a representative RV is described in detail. First, a reference case that is based on the existing RV model is presented. For further optimizations with respect to this reference case, a parametric study is performed. This parametric study focuses on evaluating the impact of inlet and outlet vent locations, supply airflow direction, and varying the number of exhaust vents on temperature and airflow distributions. Seven test cases are simulated in total. The simulation results are evaluated based on their temperatures, velocity magnitudes, PMV (Predicted Mean Vote), and PPD (Predicted Percentage of Dissatisfied) values.