The present work deals with the 3-D, transient, system level CFD simulation of automotive coolant system, which includes actual CAD of radiator, cooling jacket, coolant pump, bypass valve and thermostat valve, using a 3D CFD solver Simerics MP+®. This work is in continuation of the work done by Srinivasan et al. (2017) where wax melting, conjugate heat transfer, Fluid Structure Interaction of the valve had been solved. Thermostat valve was controlled by wax phase change model which incorporates the hysteresis effect of wax melting and solidification. The current model will also include rigorous treatment of cavitation to account for the presence of dissolved gases and vaporization of the liquid coolant. The previous work dealt with simulation of opening and closing cycle of the thermostat/by-pass valve system. A methodology has been developed and implemented where the run-time of such a system has been made considerably faster enabling us to simulate complete drive cycle tests. The distributed parallel solver of Simerics-MP+, coupled with the newly developed method can enable us to successfully simulate an HOUR of drive-cycle of coolant system within almost a day. Various parameters from experimental measurements have been corroborated with the simulation results to validate the developed technology. Further, a few design iterations are performed to showcase the potential of the developed methodology.
Reference:
[1] Srinivasan, C., Zhang, C., Gao, H., Wang, D. et al., "Modeling of Phase Change within a Wax Element Thermostat Embedded in an Automotive Cooling System," SAE Int. J. Engines 10(2):2017, doi:10.4271/2017-01-0131