Delhi Technological University

Project - Heat transfer analysis of liquid cooled radiator

Submitted to – Prof. R.S Mishra

Submitted by- Sohil Khan ( 2K19/ ME/246)

Subhash Sharma( 2K19/ME/247)
Yash Kumar (2K19/ME/276)
Contents
Introduction
Advantages and Disadvantages of Liquid cooled Radiator
Literature Review
Solid Modelling of radiator
Heat transfer analysis using Ansys
 Introduction to Radiator
The radiator transfers the heat from the fluid inside to the air outside, thereby cooling the fluid,
which in turn cools the engine. Radiators are also often used to cool automatic transmission
fluids, air conditioner refrigerant, intake air, and sometimes to cool motor oil or power steering
fluid. Radiators are typically mounted in a position where they receive airflow from the forward
movement of the vehicle, such as behind a front grill. Where engines are mid- or rear-
mounted, it is common to mount the radiator behind a front grill to achieve sufficient airflow,
even though this requires long coolant pipes.
Advantages of Liquid cooled Radiator
 As internal combustion engines generate mechanical power and waste heat energy at
the same time, they need cooling to prevent them from overheating and break down.
There are two types of engines i.e., air cooled and liquid cooled engines. Liquid cooled
engines use a mixture of water and other chemicals like anti-freeze and rust inhibitors.
 An automobile with liquid cooled engines is smoother and more resistant to breakdown
than air-cooled.
 A liquid cooled engine produces more power/torque than an air-cooled one.
 A liquid cooled engine, since cooled by liquids, maintains a better control temperature.
 Air-cooled engines are fuel efficient, affordable and require lesser engine space than
that of liquid cooled engines.
Disadvantages of Liquid cooled Radiator
 The Maintenance costs of liquid cooled ones are higher than air-cooled engines.
 Liquid cooled ones are easy to operate (better riding experience) but certainty of
liquid spilling out is high.
 Air-cooled engines are nosier and somewhat harsh than liquid cooled engines.
 Although liquid cooled engines are quite good as regards cooling, power and
efficiency air-cooled engines are preferred because of their cost efficiency, fuel
efficiency and low cost of maintenance. However, when more power and torque
is desired, liquid cooled engines are considered.
Literature Review
(1) Bharat Raj Singh (2015) conducted a study on performance evaluation of automotive radiator.
A complete set of numerical parametric studies on automotive radiator has been presented in
detail in this study. The modeling of radiator has been described by two methods, one is finite
difference method and the other is thermal resistance concept. In the performance evaluation, a
radiator is installed into a test-setup and the various parameters including mass flow rate of
coolant, inlet coolant temperature; etc. are varied. A comparative analysis between different
coolants is also shown. One coolant as water and other as mixture of water in propylene glycol in
a ratio of 40:60 is used. It is observed that that the water is still the best coolant but its limitation is
that it is corrosive and contains dissolved salts that degrade the coolant flow passage.
(2) Ramesh. T, Karthik. E, Venkatesan. T, Brightson George (2018) conducted
a research on performance evaluation of automotive radiator. This study aims on
studying and analyzing the thermal behavior of automobile radiators. Both LMTD
and ε – NTU methods are widely used for design and performance analysis of
radiators. The flow behavior of coolant fluids in radiator tubes is of great
importance to the design of radiators. In addition to the concentration on flow
behavior of coolants in radiators this work also focuses on the geometrical aspects
which are used in the core of radiators. Finally case studies of radiator prototypes
are proposed which provides the thermal behavior of radiator for the various mass
flow rates of coolant and air and surface area parameters. Finally this work
provides an overall behavior report of automobile radiators working at usual range
of conclusions have also been reported with the presence of case studies.
▪ (3)Dustin Ray and Debendra K. Das (2014) conducted a study on superior performance of nano
fluids in automotive radiators. This study compares the performance of three different nanofluids
containing aluminum oxide, copper oxide, and silicon dioxide nanoparticles dispersed in the same
base fluid, 60:40 ethylene glycol and water by mass, as coolant in automobile radiators. The
computational scheme adopted here is the effectiveness-number of transfer unit (eNTU) method
encoded in MATLAB. Appropriate correlations of thermophysical properties for these nanofluids
developed from measurements are summarized in this paper. The computational scheme has
been validated by comparing the results of pumping power, convective heat transfer coefficients
on the air and coolant side, overall heat transfer coefficient, effectiveness and NTU, reported by
other researchers. Then the scheme was adopted to compute the performance of nanofluids.
Results show that a dilute 1% volumetric concentration of nanoparticles performs better than
higher concentration. It is proven that at optimal conditions of operation of the radiator, under the
same heat transfer basis, a reduction of 35.3% in pumping power or 7.4% of the surface area can
be achieved by using the Al2O3 nanofluid. The CuO nanofluid showed slightly lower magnitudes
than the Al2O3 nanofluid, with 33.1% and 7.2% reduction for pumping power or surface area
respectively. The SiO2 nanofluid showed the least performance gain of the three nanofluids, but
still could reduce the pumping power or area by 26.2% or 5.2%. The analysis presented in this
paper was used for an automotive radiator but can be extended to any liquid to gas heat
exchanger.
▪ (5) Palani Subbiah, Rangarajan, Sagunthala (2016) conducted a research on I.C.
Engine Cooling Systems. This project work proposed a simple piping design with
less number of connecting hoses and also to reduce coolant leakage. It is also
proposed to change the piping material from aluminium alloy to mild steel which
reduces the overall cost of the engine cooling system. Findings: The proposed
design addresses the coolant leakage problem and reduces the number of parts
used in coolant pipe connections hence leading to cost reduction and simplified
design. Application/Improvements: The proposed design would benefit with coolant
leakage elimination by reduction in hose defects, reduced head loss, cost reduction
and improved life of piping system in automobiles heavy vehicles.
▪ (5) Arunpandiyan (2016) did a review of automotive radiator
performance. This review focused on the various research papers
to improve automobile radiator efficiency. Different research papers
have applied different method. Has been studied and finalized that
the various coolants (nanofluids), tubes, fan and core, change
efficiency of radiator at different mass flow rate. From the literature
study, it has been seen that the efficiency of the radiator has been
increased through a variety of methods, out of which radiator fan is
the most used one to improving the efficiency of radiator by
modification of radiator fan and radiator tube
▪ (6) Arunpandiyan (2016) did a review of automotive radiator performance. This
review focused on the various research papers to improve automobile radiator
efficiency. Different research papers have applied different method. Has been
studied and finalized that the various coolants (nanofluids), tubes, fan and core,
change efficiency of radiator at different mass flow rate. From the literature study,
it has been seen that the efficiency of the radiator has been increased through a
variety of methods, out of which radiator fan is the most used one to improving
the efficiency of radiator by modification of radiator fan and radiator tube
▪ (7) changting li1, fan bai, fanghuai gou of vehicle application department, army academy of
armored forces, china (2020)

Authored a research paper titled ‘analysis of heat exchange performance of heat exchange tubes of
evaporative heat exchanger based on fluent’. In this paper, in order to study the influence of the heat
exchange tubes length of the evaporative heat exchanger on the heat exchange performance of the
organic rankine cycle technology (ORC) in automobile exhaust heat recovery, four kinds of three-
layer tube heat exchange tube models with the length of 500mm, 800mm, 1100mm and 1400mm are
designed by DM modeling software, and they are simplified into a quarter calculation domain model.
The simulation calculations of the coupling heat exchange of four different lengths of heat exchange
tubes are performed by using the couple algorithm of fluent fluid simulation software and the κ-ε
model. Through the simulation calculation of the heat exchange of the four three-layer heat
exchange tubes, it can be seen that the temperature in the three-layer heat exchange tubes changes
along the Z axis direction. The heat exchange performance of different lengths of heat exchange
tubes can be obtained by analyzing the temperature cloud diagrams of the XY plane at both ends of
the heat exchange tubes and the temperature change curve along the z axis direction. The heat
exchange simulation analysis results of the four three-layer heat exchange tubes show that under
the set parameter model, only the inlet and outlet boundary temperature is considered, and the
three-layer heat exchange tube with a length of 1400mm has better heat exchange performance.
Solid Modelling of Radiator
Heat transfer Analysis
modeling
Meshing
Results- temperature drop for different material
CFD RESULTS – VELOCITY DISTRIBUTION
TEMPERATURE DISTRIBUTION
RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS
The heat transfer analysis of an automotive radiator is successfully carried out
using practical simulation built in commercial software ANSYS 18.3.1.
Above Results Shows that heat transfer rate as well as efficiency is increased
as the air mass flow rate increases. With the computational time and resources
available.
In this experimental study of the heat transfer ANALYSIS of a liquid cooling
radiator for vehicles is carried out by using an experimental optimization design
technique on a radiator. The regression equations of heat dissipation rate,
coolant pressure drop and air pressure drop are developed. The influences of
the air velocity, inlet coolant temperature and volume flowrate of coolant on heat
dissipation rate, coolant pressure drop and air pressure drop are discussed in
detail by means of the numerical analyses. Also, the research results provide a
basis for the theoretical and experimental analysis of heat performances and
structural refinement of the tube-and-fin radiator.
REFERENCES

[1].A.Witry M.H. Al-Hajeri and Ali A. Bondac, “CFD analysis of fluid flow and heat
transfer in patterned roll bonded aluminium radiator”, 3rdInternational
conference on CFD, CSIRO, Melborne, Australia, pp. 12-19, 2003.

[2].Hilde Van Der Vyer, Jaco Dirker and Jousoa P Meyer, “Validation of a CFD
model of a three dimensional tube-in-tube heat exchanger”, Third International
Conference on CFD in the Mineralsand Process Industry, CSIRO, Melborne,
Australia. pp. 25-32, 2003.

[3].J A Chen, D F Wang and L Z Zheng, “Experimental study of operating

performance of a tube-and-fin radiator for vehicles”, Proceedings ofInstitution of
Mechanical Engineers, Republic of China, 215: pp. 2-8, 2001.
REFERENCES
[4].Changhua Lin and Jeffrey Saunders, “The Effect of Changes in Ambient and
Coolant Radiator Inlet Temperatures and Coolant Flowrate on Specific
Dissipation”, SAE Technical Papers, 2000.

[5].Sridhar Maddipatla, “Coupling of CFD and shape optimization for radiator

design”, Oakland University. Ph.D. thesis,2001

[6].J.P.Holman, Heat transfer, Tata-McGraw-Hill Publications, 2000.

[7].Seth Daniel Oduro, “Assessing the effect of dirt on the performance of an

engine cooling system”, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and
Technology, PG thesis, 2000.

[8].Beard, R. A. and Smith,G. J., "A Method of Calculating the Heat Dissipation
from Radiators to Cool Vehicle Engines", SAE Technical Paper 710208, 1971.
REFERENCES

[9].Salvio Chacko,“Numerical Simulation for Improving RadiatorEfficiency by Air

Flow Optimization” Engineering Automation Group, Tata Technologies Limited,
Pune, India, Technical paper, 2003.

[10].S.N Sridhara, S.R. Shankapal and V Umesh Babu, (2005) “CFD analysis of
Fluid Flow & Heat Transfer in a Single Tube-Fin Arrangement of an Automotive
Radiator” International Conference on Mechanical Engineering 2005,Dhaka,
Bangladesh, Conference Paper, 2005.

[11].Yiding Cao and Khokiat Kengskool, “An Automotive Radiator Employing

Wickless Heat Pipes” Florida International University, Miami,Conference
Paper,199
Thank you