Simulating Heat Strain for Radiator Thermal Shock

In the endurance bench test of a radiator, the cracks may occur on surfaces of some tubes because of thermal shock. For this phenomenon, radiator’s inlet and outlet pipe position and core size, etc. become important factors for thermal shock. It takes a long time and many man-hours to evaluate radiators for each vehicle. This is due to the fact that each radiator’s inlet and outlet pipe position are unique which is dependent on the vehicle layout. Our aim is to develop the method for accurate predicting the heat strain.

This analysis includes thermal and structural analysis. In the former analysis, temperature distribution of the coolant heated with the engine and solid parts of a radiator is analyzed. In the latter, temperature distribution obtained by thermal analysis is reflected in the radiator model of the structure analysis, and the heat strain is analyzed. This analysis has led to a significant reduction in the development time along with a reduced manpower.