Development of a Model Scale Heat Exchanger for Wind Tunnel Models of Road Vehicles

During the development of the aerodynamic properties of fore coming road vehicles down scaled models are often used in the initial phase. However, if scale models are to be utilised even further in the aerodynamic development they have to include geometrical representatives of most of the components found in the real vehicle. As the cooling package is one of the biggest single generators of aerodynamic drag the heat exchangers are essential to include in a wind tunnel model. However, due mainly to limitations in manufacturing techniques it is complicated to make a down scaled heat exchanger and instead functional dummy heat exchangers have to be developed for scaled wind tunnel models.

In this work a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code has been used to show that it is important that the simplified heat exchanger model has to be of comparable size to that of the full scale unit.

Based on the findings of the CFD simulations a physical model of a heat exchanger was developed and presented in this article. The model heat exchanger features realistic properties with respect to flow resistance and flow guiding.