Underhood Thermal Management of Electric Tractor

The global issues of energy crisis and air pollution have offered a great opportunity to develop electric vehicles. Interest on electric vehicles (EVs) has significantly increased as environmental regulations on greenhouse gas (GHG) emission have been strengthened. This study investigates the underhood thermal management of the newly introduced electric tractor, with the target of managing the heat generated out from the major heat contributing sources. The alignment of the fan with some design modifications have been made on the basis of CFD simulation. For this work, a RANS method utilizing the k-Ɛ turbulence model have been implemented in the commercial CFD solver STAR-CCM+. The results show that the existing design configuration was not effective enough to handle the cooling requirement of the tractor. The angular orientation of the fan along with a baffle design capable enough to redirect the air into the desired locations made it possible to achieve the desired cooling even in hot summer days. The closure of the side grilles along with the aforementioned modifications made us to achieve a total temperature reduction of 14.30 % and it further implemented in the production ready model.