Technologies for thermal comfort in caravans

Abstract

The caravan usage is implanted in the people's way of living, for holidays, week-ends, and some elderly make them their home, a "moving home". They seek for travelling and living in comfort, and the caravan is intended to provide well-being. In many of the European Community counties there is a growing trend to seek for life in the countryside, valleys, and mountains, far from cities in a calm and pure atmosphere, despite their climate is not as mild as in the south western part of Europe, where Portugal is located. In order to obtain thermal comfort inside the caravan there are available several systems. In the present work it was selected a heat pump, a technology based on the vapour compression refrigeration systems. It produces energy for either heating or cooling, as function of the season, to promote thermal comfort. The focus was to study a convenient heat pump and its integration in caravans, due to space limitations.