The car air condtioner is a great thing, but it uses 5% of your gasoline. Add up all the gasoline for every car (that has an air conditioner) and that's a lot of gas! Could there be a way to help your air conditioner suck heat?

On hot summer days (like right now) I sweat like a pig, but i know that it is my body's way of keeping me cool. The sweat will dissipate the heat being created or introduced to my body. Could this same concept be used with automobiles?

The windshield washer sprayers could also be fitted in other places on the vehicle, to coat the vehicle with a layer of water, allowing the car to dissipate heat a bunch faster.

comments?
-- twitch, Jun 29 2006

A friend's dad's work van used to have an evaporative cooler. Several of the buses in my city also have evaporative coolers. I personally find them more comfortable than the ones with refrigerative air conditioning, and, yes, they probably use less fuel.
-- spidermother, Jun 30 2006


I don't think coolong down the outside of your car will help very much to cool the inside (since theres probably some insulation and a gap of air), and it would take alot of water (which would weigh a bit) to cool the body panels off.
-- BJS, Jun 30 2006


[BJS] Yes, that was implicit in my anno. The human method of cooling the body surface is less effective than, say, the panting of a dog, where the skin is insulated and the cooling happens internally. Especially where there is a large radiant heat load.
-- spidermother, Jun 30 2006


Im not sure I would agree with the statement that human sweating is not as effective as the panting of a dog. Human Sweat is one of the most efficient modes of cooling that exisits in the animal kingdom(if not the most). Dogs and many other mammals are able to undertake intense physical activity for very brief periods before they must stop and cool off(pigs roll in mud, elephants bath in water and flap thier ears). Humans on the other hand can undertake extreme activity for huge amounts of time(think Bicycle racing, Marathons, yard work) with out overheating.
-- jhomrighaus, Jun 30 2006


And rabbits have large ears that their blood circulates through.
-- BJS, Jun 30 2006


OK, the analogy isn't so good; there are circumstances where human sweating is highly effective. But some desert dwelling humans wear loose but insulating (eg woolen) clothing so as not to waste water cooling what the sun is heating, but instead keep this heat on the outside. Likewise (as [BJS] says), it might be wasteful to use water to cool the exterior of a car rather than passively keep this heat out with insulation and cool the inside. And rabbits' ears are only able to shed heat when the environmental temperature is less than the animal's body temperature - for example, in the shade.

I'm not dismissing the idea, you just may need to think about where best to do the cooling - under a tropic top, for example.
-- spidermother, Jun 30 2006


Can't wait for cars to sprout large ears.
-- moomintroll, Jun 30 2006


Personally im not so sure that this would be an improvement. any cooling system you utilize will draw on the system(and I would not be surprized if it was about a 5% draw) including opening the windows.
-- jhomrighaus, Jun 30 2006


I had a Jeep in the Arizona desert a few years back without an air conditioner. Being poor but somewhat creative I installed a misting system for the interior of the jeep using a 150psi pump, a couple of nozzles, a homemade manifold, and a water tank full of distilled water.

Worked great, most of the time. Except when it was humid and sometimes when I was stopped at a light the windows and my glasses would get *slightly* wet.
-- NotTheSharpestSpoon, Jun 30 2006


I love the idea of pulling up at a set of lights and looking round to see cars all sweating from the heat.

Especially funny on older, badly maintained cars, which would also be wheezing.

[+]
-- monojohnny, Jun 30 2006


i want my truck to pant like a dog.
-- Galbinus_Caeli, Jun 30 2006


There are home cooling methods similar to this. Put one of those soaker hoses on the roof of your house, and save on airconditioning. I'd say it is likely to work well for a car.

A mist would probably work better than a spray. If you can keep the drops small, they won't roll or drip off.
-- baconbrain, Jun 30 2006


//but it uses 5% of your gasoline// ..so the real culprit is the car itself which wastes the remaining 95%.

BTW, pigs don't sweat.
-- ConsulFlaminicus, Jun 30 2006


Your right, thats why they roll in mud(as stated before).
-- jhomrighaus, Jun 30 2006


Maybe some clever hydraulics could be employed so that the car could roll around in the mud to cool down.
-- monojohnny, Jun 30 2006



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