Experimental investigation on heating performance of heat pump for electric vehicles in low ambient temperature

Abstract

In comparison with the traditional cars, Electric Vehicles (EVs) cannot utilize the waste heat of the engines to keep warm inside the car in winter. As a potential heat source, air source heat pump (ASHP) for EVs with scroll compressor and test bench has been built to investigate the heating performances on heat pump system in low ambient temperature. Based on the demand of moisture condensation control on the window screen of EVs, the heating performances are tested on both all fresh air supply and various indoor air inlet temperature conditions, under low environmental temperature -10°C, -15°C and -20°C. The experimental results show that ASHP for EVs has big differences to buildings or household ACs due to its big ratio of fresh air, even at -20°C, the system's COP under the largest heat capacity is over 1.7.