Vehicle Cost Reduction Through Cooling System Optimization

An approach to evaluating and optimizing the vehicle engine cooling system design for minimum total vehicle cost is presented. This approach examines direct cooling system component plus the related costs for the rest of the vehicle, such as power consumption and weight, and intangible costs such as noise and vibration that affect the perceived quality of the car. It relies on computer modeling of the cooling system in order to evaluate system design variations in the advance vehicle development stage, before the overall car design is fixed. Examples of the cooling system optimization process are presented for typical passenger cars.