Technical Paper
Thermo-Mechanical Simulations of Rear Lamps with CFD
2011-04-12
2011-01-0109
A complete methodology for the thermo-mechanical analysis of optical devices for the automotive industry is presented. The objective is to predict the thermal field all over the lamp, highlighting the zones with risk of melting, and the deformations and stresses associated with it. The proposed approach is based on a Computational Fluid-Dynamic (CFD) simulation capable of capturing all the heat transfer phenomena occurring inside and outside the lamp: conduction between different components of the device, natural convection associated with density changes in air (buoyancy effects), and radiation heat transfer. The latter requires a fairly complex modeling strategy in order to provide a satisfactory (and conservative) treatment for the source of power, i.e. the filament, which can be obtained by means of a proper inclusion of transparency.
