Optimisation of the Flow Process in Engine Bays - 3D Modelling of Cooling Airflow
Doctoral thesis, 2011

The focus of today’s automotive industry is to reduce emissions and fuel consumption of all vehicles. Concentrating on the truck industry, the last 20 years have focused largely on cutting emissions of particulate matter and nitrogen oxides. For the future, attention will be on fuel consumption and emissions of carbon dioxide. Significant changes have been made to fulfill new emission legislations, but the basic vehicle architecture has been kept. New after treatment systems that increases the thermal loading of the cooling system have been added within the same packaging envelope as before. This means that there is less space to evacuate cooling airflow today and more airflow than ever is required. Furthermore, project costs have increased over the years, focus is also on cutting cost and lead times. Thus virtual development early in the project is highly desirable. Long before any prototypes are available, companies must now answer the question; will this truck have competitive performance? As the project progresses, redesigns become more expensive. Development time is becoming more and more limited, meaning any changes tend to become major changes. This has lead to a new focus of detailed and accurate simulations of vehicle performance. For these reasons, in the context of underhood thermal management, this project has been carried out; to improve and optimise the flow process in engine bays. 3D CFD supported by 1D models and measurements has been studied to predict the cooling airflow in the engine bay of trucks. The conclusions are that there are good opportunities to simulate the flow process in engine bays early in development projects. This research project presents several different methods that, for different degrees of effort deliver different accuracy and indications are that simulation can replicate measurements. This is though, with advanced simulation models and a lot of computational effort, at least seen from today’s perspective.

Cooling Airflow

UTM

Fans

CFD

Virtual Development Laboratory
Opponent: Dr. Thomas Heckenberger

Author

Peter Gullberg

Chalmers, Applied Mechanics, Vehicle Engineering and Autonomous Systems

FAN MODELING IN CFD USING MRF MODEL FOR UNDER HOOD PURPOSES

Proceedings of ASME-JSME-KSME Joint Fluids Engineering Conference 2011,;(2011)

Paper in proceeding

3D fan modelling strategies for heavy duty vehicle cooling installations - CFD with experimental validation

32nd FISITA World Automotive Congress 2008; Munich; Germany; 14 September 2008 through 19 September 2008,;(2008)p. 275-284

Paper in proceeding

A Correction Method for Stationary Fan CFD MRF Models

SAE World Congress & Exhibition,;(2009)

Paper in proceeding

Axial Fan Performance Predictions in CFD, Comparison of MRF and Sliding Mesh with Experiments

SAE 2011 World Congress and Exhibition, Detroit, 12 April 2011,;(2011)

Paper in proceeding

Continued Study of the Error and Consistency of Fan CFD MRF Models

SAE Technical Papers,;(2010)

Paper in proceeding

Fan Modelling in CFD Using RANS with MRF, Limitations and Consistency, a Comparison between Fans of Different Design

Institution of Mechanical Engineers - VTMS 10, Vehicle Thermal Management Systems Conference and Exhibition,;(2011)p. 423-433

Paper in proceeding

Cooling Airflow System Modeling in CFD Using Assumption of Stationary Flow

SAE 2011 Commercial Vehicle Engineering Congress, COMVEC 2011, Rosemont, IL, United States, 13-14 September 2011,;(2011)

Paper in proceeding

Areas of Advance

Transport

Subject Categories

Vehicle Engineering

Fluid Mechanics and Acoustics

ISBN

978-91-7385-559-4

Doktorsavhandlingar vid Chalmers tekniska högskola. Ny serie

Virtual Development Laboratory

Opponent: Dr. Thomas Heckenberger

More information

Created

10/8/2017