Experiments and CFD simulation of an air-conditioned tractor cabin for thermal comfort of tractor operators in Pakistan

Autor: Mahmood Riaz, Muhammad Hamid Mahmood, Muhammad Nauman Ashraf, Muhammad Sultan, Uzair Sajjad, Khalid Hamid, Muhammad Farooq, Faming Wang
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2023
Předmět:
Zdroj: Heliyon, Vol 9, Iss 12, Pp e23038- (2023)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2405-8440
DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e23038
Popis: Tractors are manufactured without air-conditioned cabins in Pakistan. This leads to thermal discomfort for tractor operators working under direct solar exposure. Therefore, this study aimed to design and install an air-conditioned cabin on a tractor. Experiments were undertaken to evaluate the installed cabin performance under two scenarios i.e., conventional (S–I) and enhanced (S-II) air distribution. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations were used to analyze airflow and calculate thermal comfort indices. The results showed that the air-conditioned cabin attained optimum thermal conditions under the enhanced air distribution scenario (S-II). In this scenario, the inside cabin temperature was an average of 27.4 °C, compared with 30.4 °C in S–I. The relative humidity remained similar in both scenarios, around 53 %. The temperature difference between the cabin and the ambient environment was 11.09 °C in S-II, aligning with the thermal comfort conditions outlined in ISO 14269–2. Furthermore, the CFD simulations showed a predicted mean vote (PMV) index of 0.61 and the percentage people dissatisfied (PPD) index of 26.5 %. These results also confirm the provision of optimum thermal conditions for operator inside the cabin. The simulations also demonstrated good agreement with experimental data, with a small difference in air temperature (2 °C) and relative humidity (5.8 %). In the light of these findings, this study recommends installation of air-conditioned cabin on tractors with enhanced air distribution (S-II) in Pakistan to improve thermal comfort of operators.
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