Recently, several factors as advent of catalyst converter, tighter packages, calibration strategies with higher exhaust temperatures as well as corporate requirements concerning safety and passenger comfort have contributed to increase the necessity of applying concepts of heat transfer to vehicle development process, to make sure that heat rejection is properly managed in order to accomplish all these items.
Traditionally, the method to verify these items has been physical tests in prototype vehicles. The most important advantage concerning this method is the accuracy of measurement results, since the prototype is usually close to the final product design level, being extremely representative. On the other hand, some disadvantages that can be pointed out in this method are concerning timing and costs involved in prototypes building process.
Considering this context, this work focus on a methodology that is a combination between physical tests and FEA technology keeping the accuracy of measurements and the flexibility of FEA, providing reduction of timing and costs in the product development process, related to thermal aspects.
A real application supporting Product Development Engineering, in the development of Heat Shields to protect underbody vehicle against the thermal effects of exhaust system, is presented to illustrate the process.