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Increasing demands on engine power to meet increased load carrying capacity and adherence to emission norms have necessitated the need to improve thermal management system of the vehicle. The efficiency of the vehicle cooling system strongly depends on the fan and fan-shroud design and, designing an optimum fan and fan-shroud has been a challenge for the designer. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) techniques are being increasingly used to perform virtual tests to predict and optimize the performance of fan and fan-shroud assembly. However, these CFD based optimization are mostly based on a single performance parameter. In addition, the sequential choice of input parameters in such optimization exercise leads to a large number of CFD simulations that are required to optimize the performance over the complete range of design and operating envelope. As a result, the optimization is carried out over a limited range of design and operating envelope only.

Conventionally, the automotive outer panels, giving vehicle its shape, have been manufactured from steel sheets. The outer panels are subjected to loads due to wind loading, palm-prints, person leaning on the vehicle, cart hits, and hail stones for example. Consumer awareness about these two panel characteristics: Oilcanning and Dent resistance is increased, which has been observed in recent marketing studies. Apart from perceptive quality, another factor depending on the dent performance is insurance and respective cost implications. Dents can occur due to several reasons such as object hits, parking misjudgement, hail stones etc. Phenomenon can be divided into two types, static and dynamic denting. Static dent case covers scenario wherein interaction with outer panel is mostly quasi-static. Hail stones present dynamic case where object hits a panel with certain kinetic energy. Automotive companies usually perform static dent assessment to cover all the cases.

In developing nations, most passenger vehicles are equipped with mobile air conditioning (MAC) systems that work on Hydro Fluoro Carbons (HFC) based refrigerants. These refrigerants have a high global warming potential (GWP) and hence adversely affect the environment. According to the Kigali amendment to Montreal Protocol, Article-5 Group-2 countries including India must start phasing down HFCs from 2028 and replace them with low Global Warming Potential (GWP) refrigerants. One such class of low GWP refrigerant is Hydro Fluoro Olefins (HFO) In order to replace HFCs with HFOs in existing MAC systems, the various system performance parameters with the new refrigerant are required to be evaluated. Performance evaluation of MAC system is rendered quicker and cost-effective by deploying a digital simulation tool. There is good correlation and confidence established for MAC performance prediction with HFCs through 1D CAE.