Thermal Performance of Ventilated Passenger Seats

Automotive seats are now actively cooled as well as heated to provide thermal comfort. Some seats are cooled by thermoelectric devices and others through simple forced ventilation. To ultimately determine passenger comfort requires knowing the seats ability to remove water vapor and thermal energy from the passenger’s skin. This paper presents work on measuring the mass and heat transfer performance of a forced-air ventilated seat. Comparing the thermal behavior to a semi-infinite body, an effective thermal effusivity was measured as well as an effective mass diffusivity. Average thermal effusivities were 64 and 244 W s1/2/m2 K for the non-ventilated and ventilated seats, respectively. Average mass diffusivities were 0.0031 and 0.0142 m2/s for the non-ventilated and ventilated seats, respectively.