• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.161-168
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• 2011

The heating, ventilating, air conditioning (HVAC) system is a very important part of an automotive vehicle: it controls the microclimate inside the passenger's compartment and removes the frost or mist that is produced in cold/rainy weather. In this study, the numerical analysis of the defrost duct in an HVAC system and the de-icing pattern is carried out using commercial CFX-code. The mass flow distribution and flow structure at the outlet of the defrost duct satisfied the duct design specification. For analyzing the de-icing pattern, additional grid generation of solid domain of ice and glass is pre-defined for conductive heat transfer. The flow structure near the windshield, streakline, and temperature fields clearly indicate that the de-icing capacity of the given defrost duct configuration is excellent and that it can be operated in a stable manner. In this paper, the unsteady changes in temperature, water volume fraction, and static enthalpy at four monitoring points are discussed.