Experimental Test Results of a Fabric Based Infrared Heating System on a Public Transport Vehicle

Abstract

From past up to today motor vehicles use engine waste heat in order to warmup passenger compartment and to provide thermal comfort for the passengers. However, waste heat from the engine is sometimes not enough to provide required heat to the vehicle heating system especially in cold countries. In such cases, fuel burner heaters are very often preferred and used. When the coolant temperature is too low, then its temperature increased by burning fuel on the fuel burner heater and heated coolant is then pump to heat exchangers, located inside the passenger compartment, so that heating comfort is achieved. However, this proses both consumes extra fuel as well as increases exhaust emissions left to the atmosphere. On the other hand, when full electric vehicles are considered, which are increasing their shares in the market at every other day, because there is no internal combustion engine, there is no main heat source also. Hence, required heat has to be provided form the vehicle main batteries or from any other energy sources like ethanol or diesel. In this study, a novel electrical heating system with infrared capable fabric based heaters are assembled and tested on a public transport vehicle and results are presented. Keywords— Fabric heating, public transport vehicle heating, innovative heating, novel heating, vehicle electrical heating,