Search Results

In order firstly to reduce weight, packaging and cost of engine cooling system and secondly to reduce fuel consumption and pollutants in the exhaust we have seen, over the last twenty years, several innovative engine cooling system offers. These innovative engines cooling were: Nucleate boiling engine cooling, THEMIS™ cooling system, Precision cooling system, Intelligent cooling System, …, CoolMaster™ UltimateCooling™ For each cooling system several vehicles were tested in the climatic wind tunnel, on road in real conditions and on fuel consumption and pollution facilities. The comparison of these innovative engine cooling systems will be presented in this paper, in terms of: System weight, packaging and cost, Fuel consumption and pollutants in the exhaust, Thermal comfort, Heat performance of engine cooling system.

Today there are more and more heat exchangers located at the front end and vehicles are equipped with higher and higher power engine. In the next few years, front end design of vehicle will have to be deeply modified in accordance with the pedestrian crash test specifications. In this way there is a big packaging problem at the front end to solve. This new UltimateCooling™ system uses only one fluid that is water (coolant) to cool all of engine fluids. The conventional heat exchangers cooled by air become new heat exchangers cooled by water. These new heat exchangers: WCAC, WCDS, WOC and WFC will be moved from front end to under hood. At the front end there is only one multi-temperature radiator providing high temperature and low temperature on demand.

In order to improve the Thermal System Management and fulfill the need of car Manufacturers, VALEO is developing new engine cooling « intelligent » Components and Strategies. The evolution of engine cooling strategies with the introduction of electronics in Fan System like FANTRONIC® is presented here. The use of such controlled actuators allows to reduce noise annoyances, pollutant emissions, fuel consumption and to improve comfort and engine cooling. The tests achieved on a Mercedes A Class allow to compare different kind of engine cooling strategies on a statistical driving car use on a whole year. This method uses three inputs: vehicle speed, air ambient temperature and air conditioning use. Outputs are electric / gas consumption and noise annoyances integrated with an equivalent noise level method.

This paper concerns the dynamic behavior of mechanical heat exchangers. After a concise description of a mechanical radiator, in this case an automotive radiator, its actual behavior is discussed through an experimental modal analysis. The paper also presents an original approach, based on Finite Elements, to model mechanical heat exchangers and compares the numerical simulation to experimental investigations. Finally, the feasibility of using a radiator-model to build a simple cooling module model is proven.

A radiator on a component wind tunnel will not perform as in the engine compartment due to the many mitigating factors: the water pump, the fan power, and other vehicle components like the grill, air inlet cross sectional area, bumper position, ram air, pressure coefficient at the front end and at the air outlet of underhood. A simple engine cooling system simulation model has been modeled allowing to predict the influence of each component listed above. The calculation results have been compared to the wind tunnel test results on seven different vehicles.

In order to improve engine Thermal System Management and fulfill the need of car Manufacturers, VALEO is developing new engine cooling « intelligent » Components and Strategies. The evolution of engine cooling strategies with the introduction of electronics in Fan System like FANTRONIC®, Electrical Water Valve or pump like PUMPTRONIC® is presented here. The use of such controlled actuators helps reducing noise level, pollutant emissions and fuel consumption, as well as improving comfort and engine durability. The comparative tests of several cooling architectures carried out on four Mercedes A Class allow comparison of different types of engine cooling strategies and their impact on oil, coolant and metal temperature.