抄録
The flow mixing performance in a heater unit for automobile has been studied by model experiment using the thermo-sensitive liquid crystal technique and the color tracer visualization technique. The former technique combined with the image processing provides a temperature distribution in the unit, while the latter shows the diffusion distribution of the main and heater flow. Both techniques provide useful tools for understanding the flow mixing performance of the main and heater flow in the unit. It is found that the diffusion distributions obtained from the color tracer technique reproduces the qualitative nature of the flow mixing obtained from the temperature distributions by liquid crystals. These visualization studies show that the flow mixing performance inside the heater unit depends strongly on the mixdoor angles. The mixing performance was also evaluated quantitatively by using the temperature distribution obtained from the liquid crystals downstream of the heater unit.
