Thermal Management of Power plants in Armoured Vehicles

Armoured Fighting Vehicles (AFV) differ to a very large extent, from conventional automobiles with regard to their build, installation of power plant, type of operations, seating, facilities available, etc. Therefore, they present typical and peculiar problems in various areas, which require ingenious methods to overcome the same. Their power plants are very compact and have very high power to volume ratio but inherently have limited access for servicing. Such installation is unavoidable, since installation / changing of new power plant has to be done in a short time as in case of emergencies such as under battle conditions. Due to the high level of protection necessary, the cooling airflow path is normally through louvers. This type of an arrangement reduces the airflow available for cooling the power plants. This paper describes some of the problems faced and solutions adopted for thermal balancing in order to achieve optimum cooling with least loss of power generated thereby improving cooling system efficiency of a battle tank power plant.