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Durability assessments of modern engines often require accurate modeling of thermal stresses in critical regions such as cylinder head firedecks under severe cyclic thermal loading conditions. A new methodology has been developed and experimentally validated in which transient temperature distributions on cylinder head, crankcase and other components are determined using a Conjugate Heat Transfer (CHT) CFD model and a thermal finite element analysis solution. In the first stage, cycle-averaged gas side boundary conditions are calculated from heat transfer modeling in a transient in-cylinder simulation. In the second stage, a steady-state CHT-CFD analysis of the full engine block is performed. Volume temperatures and surface heat transfer data are subsequently transferred to a thermal finite element model and steady state solutions are obtained which are validated against CFD and experimental results.

New regulations such as CAFE are pushing OEMs to look for options to increase vehicle mileage. Increasing combustion efficiency, alternate fuels and weight reductions are front runners in this quest. Due to limited scope of improvement in first two options, weight reduction is considered as more feasible option. Composite materials have long been used in Aerospace-aviation industries for weight reduction. So, usage of composite materials is gaining popularity in automotive industry also. Composite manufacturing is still an expensive and time consuming procedure, so virtual prototyping is being used to evaluate design, very early in the product cycle, to reduce physical prototype testing. In this paper we have tried to demonstrate how designers can easily analyze automotive components using virtual prototyping. Starting from CAD, general workflow of composite structure modeling to optimization is discussed.