Search Results

In order to enhance the ability of engineers to quickly and easily evaluate new heat shield materials and construction methods for the underhood and underbody regions of the vehicle, a standardized rig test is being developed. The issues involved in the development of this test method are discussed as well as the important parameters. Test results for different heat shield materials are also presented.

Too often many heat management problems are not solved with thermal analysis because of excessive complexity, time, and cost. A method for quickly solving a sophisticated thermal/fluid system with minimal user interaction and with common desktop computer resources is presented. A desktop (Microsoft Windows™) thermal analysis package, WinTherm, consists of the Generic Processor (pre-processing software), the 3-D Thermal Model (a finite difference nodal network solver), and an Image Viewer (wireframe and animated thermal display). The theoretical basis for this thermal analysis toolkit will be discussed as well as examples of its implementation.