Numerical and Experimental Analysis of Heat Transfer in Automobile Radiator Using Helical Tubes

Abstract

Internal combustion engines are cooled by passing a liquid called as engine coolant through the engine block. The coolant gets heated as it absorbs the heat produced in the engine. It then passes through the radiator where it loses heat to the atmosphere. It is then circulated back to the engine in a closed loop. The engine’s life, performance and overall safety are ensured due to effective engine cooling.

To ensure smooth running of an automotive vehicle under any variable load conditions, one of the major systems necessary is the cooling system. Automobile radiators are becoming highly power-packed with increasing power to weight or volume ratio.

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is one of the important software tools to access preliminary design and the performance of the radiator. In this thesis, a 55 hp engine radiator data is taken for analysis in CFD. The model is done CREO parametric software and imported in ANSYS.

In this thesis consider both helical type tube and straight tube for the radiator.  The comparison is done for helical and straight type tube at different mass flow rates like 2.8, 1.5 kg/sec. In this thesis the CFD analysis to determine the heat dissipate rate and mass flow rate, pressure drop, velocity and heat transfer rate for the both helical type and straight type tube.