A Practical Simulation Approach for Truck Cooling System At Early Stage Design Process and Development

Truck underhood thermal management has become a critical design parameter to meet the increasingly stringent U.S. federal EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) diesel emissions standards. Both heat exchanger modules and vehicle design details have significant impact on the cooling performance.

This paper introduces an integrated numerical modeling approach utilizing one way coupled solution combining 3-dimensional finite volume computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method and 1-dimensional simplified system model to simulate full complicated airflow and heat transfer activities. The results are validated against experimental data based on some selected actual vehicle operating conditions for two designs configurations including a new and improved cooling module design. One of the benefits of this approach would allow engineers to systematically conduct parametric study the effect of design changes over a wide range of conditions and determine time-efficient accurate solutions for each evaluation.