One-dimension and three-dimension collaborative simulation study of the influence of non-uniform inlet airflow on the heat transfer performance of automobile radiators

Abstract

• A 1D and 3D collaborative simulation method is proposed for automobile radiator. • The influence of the non-uniform air on the heat transfer performance is studied. • The proposed method predicts the local thermal performance exactly. • Compared to the 1D method, the proposed method has higher simulation accuracy. • Compared to the 3D method, the proposed method saves the time cost by 28.8%. The one-dimensional and three-dimensional numerical simulation methods are traditionally used for heat transfer analysis of radiators, due to the high-efficiency of one-dimensional simulation and the high-accuracy of the three-dimensional simulation, respectively. In the current study, a collaborative simulation method was proposed to combine the advantages of the one-dimensional and three-dimensional methods, in order to investigate the influence of non-uniform inlet airflow on the heat transfer performance of an automobile radiator. In the proposed method, considering that the one-dimensional model cannot directly identify the mapped three-dimensional velocity of the heat transfer unit, the pressure loss coefficient is adopted for transformation. In this way, the application of complex three-dimensional velocity boundaries in the one-dimensional model can be successfully realized. The feasibility of the collaborative simulation method was validated by comparing the errors (0.27 m⋅s −1 and 2.6 °C) between simulated and experimental values of local velocity and local temperature. Besides, compared to the one-dimensional simulation method, the collaborative simulation method had higher accuracy in simulating the local heat transfer on the air side and the coolant side of the radiator. Compared to the three-dimensional simulation method, the collaborative simulation method could save 28.8% of the computational time. The obtained results indicated that the proposed method has a good application prospect in the actual engineering for its satisfactory accuracy and reasonable computational effort.