Carbon Dioxide Concentration inside Vehicle with Ventilation Setting

Abstract

Abstract: Automobile had become a necessary and vital transport for many purposes and a lot of people spend their most of the time inside the air tight condition of car. However, this phenomenon could raise an alert of indoor air quality in a confined space car. The problem that is concerned about high carbon dioxide concentration through human exhalation as one of air contaminants which can bring chronic and acute effect to the drivers while they are driving on the road with long time duration. Therefore, this project is aimed to determine and investigate indoor air quality and air change per hour (ACH) inside the car with different ventilation setting which are re-circulation (RC) and outside air (OA) mode. The outside road driving testing with indoor air quality instruments such as Q-Trak Plus and VelociCalc is conducted with 2 occupants, fixed air-conditioner level, speed of car and different ventilation setting among two hours durations. The result obtained shows that concentration of carbon dioxide raise around 3500ppm which above maximum acceptable values, 1000ppm that is listed in indoor air quality standard in RC and drop below 1000ppm until 850ppm in OA which is safe to driver. The air change per hour (ACH) shows higher under OA rather than in RC as there is no air exchange in RC mode. The result shows the higher the air change per hour, the more the concentration of carbon dioxide could be decrease in OA. The result of high temperature obtained in the mode of OA which is exceed acceptable temperature, 28 0C while temperature under RC mode is inside acceptable range of 23 0C to 28 0C. The results of relative humidity are indicated in acceptable zone, 40% to 70% in both RC and OA mode. It can be concluded that carbon dioxide concentration rise higher in RC than in OA mode and air change per hour (ACH) can influence efficiency of carbon dioxide exchange out of the car.