Numerical Investigation on Airflow Distribution of Automotive Radiator

Abstract

In automobiles due to styling and packaging constraints there are several blockages in the upstream and downstream direction of radiator, which interrupts the uniform airflow distribution. However, airflow distribution on the radiator face plays a key role in improving its effectiveness. The objective of this work is to analyze the impact of airflow distribution and uniformity index with different types of blockages ahead of the radiator using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tool. Four different geometry blockages are considered for this study and analyzed further to arrive at the better Uniformity index. The different blockage geometries considered are horizontal, vertical, side to side and side to center. It is observed that side to side geometry blockage gives poor velocity distribution compared to others. Also CFD model is validated with experimental result and good agreement has been observed between predicted and measured velocity pattern over the radiator. In addition to this, a statistical study is conducted to analyze the influence of various parameters like fan speed and ram air speed along with types of blockage on the uniformity index. It is observed that, type of blockage have the significant impact on the uniformity index. The interpretations of this work can serve as a design guideline for the thermal system and styling engineers of automotive domain.