Energy Consumption Evaluation of a Novel Individual Heating System using Infrared Panels for Long Distance and Regional Trains

Abstract

There is an increasing urgency to shift road transportation of passengers to more environmentally friendly modals such as railways. Individual acclimatization, a commonplace for cars and airplanes is still fiction for railways and one challenge for the modal shift. A joint collaboration between Deutsche Bahn Systemtechnik (DB-ST) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) conducted a series of experiments at the "Demonstrator for Innovation for Traveller Comfort and Air Conditioning" (DIRK) in Minden to analyse the capability of individual heating elements, especially infrared panels, to maintain or increase the thermal passengers’ comfort, as well as the possibility to reduce the cabin temperature in case of heating, thus allowing a reduction of the heating energy demand while at least maintaining the same thermal comfort level. For this purpose, a system architecture was developed which consists of a control and a measuring system. The control system allows to set the comfort levels of various heating elements by each user via an individual tablet. The measuring system records the electrical power of the respective seats and allows them to be evaluated. This paper introduces the system architecture designed for controlling and measuring the electric energy demand of the heating elements, as well as the power characterization of infrared panels related to the input signal.