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The acceleration performance of a car equipped with a turbocharged, intercooled engine is affected by the volume of cooling air that flows through the core of the intercooler. Additionally, the volume of cooling air entering the intercooler is influenced by the configuration of the air intake provided in the exterior design. Therefore, in planning a new model it is very important to be able to predict acceleration performance, at an early stage of the vehicle development process, in relation to vehicle styling and engine specifications. The procedures employed so far to predict the volume of air flowing through the intercooler have included two-dimensional finite-difference methods and a panel method. However, because of their simple nature, none of these approaches has provided sufficiently accurate results. This paper presents a new numerical analysis method that has been developed to overcome this problem.

The engine cooling system is required to provide much higher performance today owing to the improved power output of engines and the trend toward a more compact engine compartment. For front engine/rear drive vehicles equipped with a fluid coupling drive fan, one of the main problems that must be dealt with is the rise in coolant temperature during idling. This paper presents a new method to simulate the engine coolant temperature under idling condition, and an improved engine cooling system that features a totally redesigned fan blade for maximum efficiency. This new system, consisting of a high performance cooling fan shroud and coupling, achieves a substantial noise reduction and contributes to fuel economy and power output improvements.

The use of higher output engines and more auxiliary units is resulting in greater heat generation in the engine compartment. At the same time, design trends and demands for improved aerodynamic performance are diminishing the cooling air flow rate. These two sets of factors are making the thermal environment in the engine compartment more severe. In this work, heat flow in the engine compartment was investigated by numerical analysis and flow visualization, and flow control devices were devised for optimizing the temperature distribution. This paper discusses the heat flow optimization techniques and presents the results obtained in experiments with an actual vehicle.

Since the Adapted Frontlighting System (AFS) was commercialized in 2003, it has helped improve visibility on curves. This paper reports that: The driver’s eye-fixation points change for different areas on a curve. This was found by observing the driver’s gaze behavior in horizontal directions and the road geometry of curves; and There is a correlation between the gaze behavior in horizontal directions and the headlamp lighting, AFS lighting in particular. This correlation was used to evaluate the AFS lighting performance.