Development of a FSAE Racecar Cooling System

The performance required by the actual spark ignition engines have increased the demands on the cooling system. In addition, in formula style competitions like Formula SAE the use of aerodynamics brought new problems about airflow restriction, requiring a complex study in the heat exchange area. The ideal cooling system in this case uses a heat exchanger that will maintain the engine on the optimum working temperature. To make this possible the paper presents a methods of evaluating heat exchangers and to predict the heat generated by the engine. In order to get the data needed for the analysis, some experimental measurements are made, the water pump flow rate are measured and temperature sensors are added to both, cold and hot, fluids. The air velocity profile through the radiator core showed to be a very important factor in this situation, trying to predict it, CFD simulations have been used. Evaluating the methods, comparisons are performed looking for the best approximation with real case. Realizing that the actual cooling system is not the ideal, some modifications are proposed looking for reliability and mass reduction.