Let's figure it out first How to insulate air conditioner pipes affects fuel consumption. At the same time, the initial task of improving interior cooling was considered, and we succeeded.
The temperature in the cabin dropped from 7-8 degrees Celsius to 3-4.
Car test with and without insulated tubes
To understand how the thermal insulation of air conditioner tubes affects fuel consumption, we will drive the same distance twice with insulated tubes and then without them. Then we will summarize the data from the races and draw conclusions.
To accurately record the distance traveled and the fuel spent on it, we use device "ELM 327", which we connect to a cell phone with the appropriate program.
For all races, we choose a distance of 5-7 km on a flat horizontal track. We accelerate the car to 90 km/h and set it to cruise. We set the air conditioner operation to level 4. We direct the cooled air onto the glass and legs without recirculation. We fix the outside temperature, which is +32 degrees Celsius. We reset the mileage and fuel consumption indicators on the phone to 0.
We start 2 races with heat-insulated air conditioning pipes. The first run of 7.1 km required 0.456 liters of fuel, the second – 0.454 liters. We remove the thermal insulation from the air conditioner pipes and also make 2 runs under the same conditions. Fuel consumption is respectively 0.462 liters and 0.464 liters for the same 7.1 km.
What result?
The efficiency of the air conditioner with the thermal insulation removed from the pipes has actually decreased. It became noticeably hotter in the cabin at the 4th division and I had to switch to the 5th division to ensure the required comfort.
Regarding fuel economy. If there was thermal insulation on the air conditioner pipes, the average fuel consumption was (0.454 + 0.456) : 2 = 0455 liters, without - (0.462 + 0.464) : 2 = 0.463 liters. Fuel economy: /(0.463 – 0.455) : 0.455/ × 100% = 1.76%. That is, the savings from every 10 liters of fuel will be about 0.2 liters, and from 100 liters already 2 liters. Not bad at all.
The fears of some skeptics about the accumulation of condensation between the tubes and the thermal insulation were not justified. The thermal insulation and tubes turned out to be dry, not counting the lowest section of the tubes, where the condensate drained and went outside. To make this process more intense, a narrow gap can be left in this place in the thermal insulation.
The most suitable material for thermal insulation of tubes is We consider “K-FLEX” to be a suitable material, used for insulation of industrial pipelines, aluminum foil and plastic clamps.
