Design Optimization of Engine Cooling Unit Packaging for Commercial Vehicle 2018-28-0013

An engine cooling system is required to maintain stable operating temperature for the engine and prevent it from overheating. Thermal distortion of engine parts can take place if proper cooling is not maintained and engine may loss efficiency. One of the major problem in this domain is to incorporate separate cooling systems for the different variants of engines (different power rating). A single optimized cooling unit is desired to manage the entire range of engine rated power. The factors that affect the cooling system are front end grill opening area, air recirculation, location of snorkel inlet, radiator core size, which need to be tuned to get appropriate results. The above parameters are tuned to obtain appropriate results using the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations. In the next stage, on road cooling trials are performed and real time data is collected. A correlation is established between physical trials and CFD results which may be helpful in future projects as well.

From experimental results we observed a sufficient temperature drop in both heat exchangers (radiator and intercooler) and efficient heat rejection is made possible through the heat exchanger to maintain proper functioning temperature of engine. All trials are performed at extreme conditions i.e. full throttle, 100% load and high gradient conditions, to obtain maximum possible heat rejection to coolant fluid.