AIR QUALITY ASSESSMENT IN VEHICLE IN-CABIN: FIELD AND LABORATORY APPROACHES

Abstract

Gaseous and particulate pollutants which are emitted from automotive vehicles can infiltrate the surrounding cars exposing drivers and passengers to toxic substances with serious adverse health effects. Since the infiltration process depends on the outside pollutants concentration, we undertook wind tunnel measurements to assess their dispersion and interaction with the flow dynamic in the near-wake of a vehicle model. Concurrently field measurements were conducted to assess the pollutant concentration levels inside a car cabin. On the one hand, the results dealing with the dispersion in wind tunnels have shown that the nanoparticles issued form tailpipe exhaust gas accumulate in the core of the vortices that appear in the vehicle near-wake. This behaviour plays an important role on their infiltration since the cabin air intake is located in front of most of cars. On the other hand, the pollutant on-board measurements have shown that the concentrations of NOx and ultrafine particles (UFP) inside the cabin can reach 9 and 14 times respectively the concentration outside