Correlation of Pressure Drop over a Simplified and Detailed Radiator Geometry

Typ
Examensarbete för masterexamen
Master Thesis
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Publicerad
2006
Författare
Söderblom, David
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Testing cooling air flow on scaled vehicle models has become increasingly popular amongst car manufactures. To be able to predict the drag and lift changes at low cost early in the development the model has to be equipped with detailed engine compartments, including the radiator. Scaling a full size cooling package is not possible due to the geometry and the changes of the flow. Thus is it common to simplify the cooling package and fine tune it to match the properties of the full size radiator. The aim of this diploma work was to develop and with the help of numerics verify a simplified radiator package for a scaled wind tunnel car model. The main property of interest was the pressure drop. It was also important to design a radiator model that has a flow which was similar to the original cooling package. To determine the pressure drop of the full size radiator the commercial CFD code Fluent was used. The results from the simulations were used as reference when the radiator simulator was designed due to the limited amount of data available concerning the original cooling package. The core of the radiator model consists of honeycomb with flow guiding properties and mesh that creates the pressure drop. A number of different meshes were used to calibrate the radiator model in a test rig. Then was the total pressure measured in front of and behind the model to determine the pressure drop. These values were then compared to the scaled pressure drop curve from the calculations performed on the full scale cooling package in Fluent. The outcome from these simulations and tests was a model scale radiator with the properties of the full scale cooling package. There is still work to be done to refine the results even more. Test with other mesh configurations, different turbulence intensity and a redesigned test rig would be recommended.
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Strömningsmekanik , Fluid mechanics
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