With Summer, thoughts turn to how to keep the cabin cool: Potential of solar reflective cover on regulating the car cabin conditions and fuel consumption
The paper begins:
Reducing the paper from the most to least effective techniques:
So this was my morning project wearing sun glasses and 50% sunscreen:
The paper begins:
Most vehicles have a large glazed surface area with respect to its total cabin area. For a general mid-size sedan cabin, its total glazing areas is ∼4.21 m2 (29%, 27% and 43% for the windshield, rear window, and total right and left side windows, respectively) . . . Unfortunately, when vehicles are parked in an open parking lot under direct sunlight, the inclination of the transparent surfaces allow a large percentage of incident solar radiation to pass through it. Rugh and Farrington [47] claimed that 50–75% of the thermal energy entering the car cabin is due to transmitted and absorbed solar energy from glazing. Windshield alone accounts for more than 40% of heat transmitted into the cabin
Reducing the paper from the most to least effective techniques:
So this was my morning project wearing sun glasses and 50% sunscreen:
- double aluminum layer over foam - exterior reflects the sun light and protects the interior from and radiant heat with foam and a second aluminum layer.
- clothes line cord - along the top, folded, and aluminum taped, the ends are anchored in the inside sun screen posts. One problem is closing the window will crease the rubber seal. So a future version will use a thin, flexible material that will not crease the rubber seal.
- bottom fits under the windshield wipers so the wind won't blow it away.
- should work in winter too - keeping the interior heat inside instead of radiating out to space.