Passive cooling through the atmospheric window for vehicle temperature control

One of the most energy-intensive activities for a vehicle is space air conditioning, for either cooling or heating. Considerable energy savings can be achieved if this can be decoupled from the use of fuel or electricity. This study analyzes the opportunities and effectiveness of deploying the concept of passive cooling through the atmospheric window (i.e. the 8–14 µm wavelength range where the atmosphere is transparent for thermal radiation) for vehicle temperature control. Recent work at our institute has resulted in a skylight (roof window) design for passive cooling of building space. This should be applicable to vehicles as well, using the same materials and design concept. An overall cooling effect is obtained if outgoing (long wavelength greater than 4 µm) thermal radiation is stronger than the incoming (short wavelength less than 4 µm) thermal radiation. Of particular interest is to quantify the passive cooling of a vehicle parked under direct/indirect sunlight equipped with a small skylight, designed based on earlier designs for buildings. The work involved simulations using commercial computational fluid dynamics software implementing (where possible) wavelength-dependency of thermal radiation properties of materials involved. The findings show that by the use of passive cooling, a temperature difference of up to 7–8 K is obtained with an internal gas flow rate of 0.7 cm/s inside the skylight. A passive cooling effect of almost 27 W/m ² is attainable for summer season in Finland. Comparison of results from Ansys Fluent and COMSOL models shows differences up to about 10 W/m ² in the estimations.