Review of underhood aerothermal management: Towards vehicle simplified models

Abstract

This paper concentrates on the assessment of automobiles aerothermal management; namely, the consequence of the architectural arrangements of electrical and mechanical components on the aerothermal behavior in the underhood compartment. Consequently, it is natural to review the architectural arrangements of underhood components implemented by automotive companies such as Renault, Peugeot, Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Volvo, General Motors, Jaguar, Land Rover, Porsche, Nissan, Chrysler, Ford, Hyundai, Kia, and Toyota. Moreover, this study will evaluate the qualitative impact of each individual component on the aerothermal environment of the underhood. Furthermore, the study is determined to examine explicitly the components architectural arrangements' of underhood compartments and present simplified models of the compartments so that they can serve as aerothermal baseline models in the early stages of design. Hence, the different components in the underhood compartment are classified with respect to aerothermal orders of impact. Followed, two geometrical models, simple and advanced, are developed based on the impact orders. These models serve for future aerothermal studies (analytical, numerical and experimental). Finally, a simplified vehicle model is designed and implemented as underhood compartment model. The structurally simplified model is already utilized in experiments and can be used afterward in both numerical and experimental analyses.