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The focus on engine thermal management is rapidly increasing due to the significant effect of heat losses on fuel consumption, engine performance and emissions. This work presents a time resolved, high resolution 3D engine heat balance model, including all relevant components. Notably, the model calculates the conjugated heat transfer between the solid engine components, the coolant and the oil. Both coolant and oil circuits are simultaneously resolved with a CFD solver in the same finite volume model as the entire engine solid parts. The model includes external convection and radiation. The necessary boundary conditions of the thermodynamic cycle (gas side) are mapped from a calibrated 1D gas exchange model of the same engine. The boundary conditions for the coolant and at the oil circuits are estimated with 1D models of the systems. The model is calibrated and verified with measurement data from the same engine as modeled.

Volvo Car Corporation has developed a Reference Architecture for PAG1 Infotainment Systems. A Reference Architecture is an architecture scoping over more than a single system, i.e. an architecture aimed for a family of systems. The Infotainment Reference Architecture has since 2001 been successfully applied for the PAG family which so far covers the infotainment systems of Volvo XC90, Volvo S40/V50, Jaguar XK, Aston Martin DB9 and the brand new Volvo S80. In 1999, the system design departments started up with the clear objective to develop a system solution aiming for the PAG infotainment system family. The work was carried out according to the established development process at Volvo Cars. A year later a discouraging design review was performed. The number of involved functions, the level of function interaction and the distribution of functionalities between ECUs resulted in a non-manageable system solution.

The aerodynamic properties of a full-scale car have been investigated in a wind-tunnel with upstream boundary layer suction, and in a water-basin where the car was rolling on the bottom. Measurements were carried out of the drag and lift forces, the static pressure distribution on the car body and the total head distribution between the car and the ground. By comparing data from the tunnel and the basin the ground simulation technique could be evaluated. The measured drag coefficients were found to be very similar in both facilities, while the absolute values of the lift coefficients were considerably higher in the tunnel. Lift differences due to configuration changes of the upperbody were essentially the same in the two facilities, while changes of the underbody caused smaller lift differences in the tunnel. In the project the water-basin technique was thoroughly investigated and proven.

In aerodynamic development of ground vehicles, the use of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is crucial for improving the aerodynamic performance, stability and comfort of the vehicle. Simulation time and accuracy are two key factors of a well working CFD procedure. Using scale-resolving simulations, accurate predictions of the flow field and aerodynamic forces are possible, but often leads to long simulation time. For a given solver, one of the most significant aspects of the simulation time/cost is the temporal resolution. In this study, this aspect is investigated using the realistic vehicle model DrivAer with the notchback geometry as the test case. To ensure a direct and accurate comparison with wind tunnel measurements, performed at TU Berlin, a large section of the wind tunnel is included in the simulation domain. All simulations are performed at a Reynolds number of 3.12 million, based on the vehicle length.

Flow simulations of an air distribution system have been carried out using the CFD code FLUENT/UNS [1]. The purpose of this study is to validate this complex flow problem versus experimental data. Two modes of the climate system are investigated; the Ventilation mode and the Floor/Defroster mode. The complete geometrical model contains all ducts, central unit, heat exchangers, defroster and nozzles of the air distribution system. A high level of geometrical detailing in the mesh, consisting of 2.1 - 3.3 million cells, is used. The study shows that CFD has a potential to give reliable results, even for complex systems, like air distribution systems, if used in a controlled manner.

Targets for reducing emissions and improving energy efficiency present the automotive industry with many challenges. Passenger cars are by far the most common means of personal transport in the developed part of the world, and energy consumption related to personal transportation is predicted to increase significantly in the coming decades. Improved aerodynamic performance of passenger cars will be one of many important areas which will occupy engineers and researchers for the foreseeable future. The significance of wheels and wheel housings is well known today, but the relative importance of the different components has still not been fully investigated. A number of investigations highlighting the importance of proper ground simulation have been published, and recently a number of studies on improved aerodynamic design of the wheel have been presented as well. This study is an investigation of aerodynamic influences of different tires.

In the early days of the automotive industry, durability and reliability were hit or miss affairs, with end-users often being the first to know about any durability problems - and in many cases forming an essential part of the development process. More recently, automotive companies have developed proving ground and laboratory test procedures that aim to simulate typical or severe customer usage. These test procedures have been used to develop the products through a series of prototypes and to prove the durability of the product prior to release in the marketplace. Now, commercial pressures and legal requirements have led to increasing reliance on CAE methods, with fatigue life prediction having a central role in the durability engineering process.

This paper describes how simultaneous numerical simulation of cooling performance and aerodynamic drag can be used to achieve attribute-balanced solutions. Traditionally at Volvo, evaluation of cooling performance and aerodynamics are done by separate teams using separate models and software. However, using this approach, any project changes can be evaluated in terms of their effect on cooling performance and drag from one single model. This enables the project to make decisions that are optimal in a more global perspective. If several proposals have similar levels of cooling performance, the proposal that yields the lowest overall drag can be chosen, thus reducing the fuel consumption of the vehicle. The first part of the paper discusses the prerequisites for the method in terms of boundary conditions, mesh and solution strategy. For the cooling performance part, the importance of high quality boundary conditions is reviewed.

It is demonstrated that the cycle averaged heat flux on the hot gas side of the cylinders can be obtained using in-cylinder CFD-analysis. Together with the heat transfer coefficient obtained from the coolant jacket CFD-analysis, a complete set of boundary conditions are made available exclusively based on simulations. The engine metal temperatures could then be predicted using FEA and the results are compared to an extensive set of measured data. Also 1-D codes are used to provide cooling circuit boundary conditions and gas exchange boundary condition for the CFD-models. The predicted temperature distribution in the engine is desirable for accurate and reliable prediction of knock, durability problems, bore distortion and valve seat distortion.

Maintaining the current ratio between certified and the customer-observed fuel consumption even with future required levels poses a considerable challenge. Increasing the efficiency of the driveline enables certified fuel consumption down to a feasible level in the order of 80 g CO₂/km using fossil fuels. Mainly affecting off-cycle fuel consumption, energy amounts used to create good interior climate as well as energy-consuming options and features threaten to further increase. Progressing urbanization will lead to decreasing average vehicle speeds and driving distances. Highly efficient powertrains come with decreased amounts of waste energy traditionally used for interior climate conditioning, thus making necessary a change of auxiliary systems.

Numerical simulations of the flow inside a passenger compartment are compared with experimental data obtained from velocity field measurements using Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV). Comparisons are made in the front part of the passenger compartment with the air-distribution system operated in a ventilation mode. The sensitivty of the CFD-model to the boundary conditions was investigated and two different turbulence models were tested. Computations and experiments resulted in similar results for the overall flow field, however, rather large differences were found in the vertical spreading of the jet from the dashboard nozzle. The width of the jet was lower in the measurements than in the simulations. This difference is believed to be caused by the high diffusivity obtained when using a k-epsilon model in combination with an unstructured grid.

When designing components, systems and fluid characteristics, thermal loads gathered over the life cycle of an automobile are of great interest. Ageing and deterioration based on the temperature/time distribution that a component or fluid is exposed to, affects the functionality and/or durability of electronics, polymers and lubricants. Optimal design in terms of quality and cost are two of the most governing parameters at Volvo Cars at present. To meet this need, designing terms of life cycles from a thermal perspective has been developed during recent years. This paper presents a methodology for designing components and choosing system solutions from life span thermal loads in Volvo Car's vehicles. The fundamental ideas behind the method, design criteria and examples of usage are discussed from a holistic point of view.

This paper describes the development of a robust and accurate method to model one-phase heat exchangers in complete vehicle air flow simulations along with a comprehensive comparison of EFD and CFD results. The comparison shows that the inlet radiator coolant temperatures obtained with CFD were within ±4°C of the experimental data with a trend in the differences being dependent on the car speed. The relative differences in cooling air mass flow rates increase with increasing car speed, with CFD values generally higher than EFD. From the investigation, the conclusion is that the methodology and modeling technique presented offer an accurate tool for concept and system solutions on the front end design, cooling package and fan. Care must be taken in order to provide the best possible boundary conditions paying particular attention to the heat losses in the engine, performance data for the radiator and fan characteristics.

Automotive turbo compressors generate high frequency noise in the air intake system. This sound generation is of importance for the perceived sound quality of luxury cars and may need to be controlled by the use of silencers. The silencers usually contain resonators with slits, perforates and cavities. The purpose of the present work is to develop acoustic models for these resonators where relevant effects such as the effect of a realistic mean flow on losses and 3D effects are considered. An experimental campaign has been performed where the two-port matrices and transmission loss of sample resonators have been measured without flow and for two different mean flow speeds. Models for two resonators have been developed using 1D linear acoustic theory and a FEM code (COMSOL Multi-physics). For some resonators a separate linear 1D Matlab code has also been developed.

Many accidents are road departures because of the drivers' lack of attention. This is in many cases due to distraction, drowsiness or intoxication. The Haptic Lane Departure Warning System described here is intended as an active safety system, thus aiming at decreasing the amount of unwanted lane departures. The challenge in the development of such kinds of functions lies in the determination of dangerous situations and the design of appropriate warning/intervention strategies. The system is intended to go unnoticed with the driver and intervenes only in instances where the driver mismanages steering control. Unlike systems which issue an audible sound, the type of warning is a tactile feedback via the steering wheel. This torque is designed in a way that it communicates to the driver the appropriate steering wheel angle required in order to come back in lane.

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.

There are now several wind tunnel facilities within Europe for testing passenger cars with and without moving ground and rotating wheel conditions (henceforth abbreviated to MVG&RW conditions). Within these facilities, the drag of a car under MVG&RW conditions is typically less than the drag of a car under stationary ground and stationary wheel conditions. This drag difference has been found to vary from a decrease of about 25 drag counts to a small drag increase according to published sources. A drag reduction of 10 to 20 drag counts is more typical, however.

Most OEMs are shifting their strategy and way of thinking regarding ECUs. This, in combination with the electrification of vehicles and the shift towards software-based companies (car as a device), implies one of the biggest paradigm changes in automotive history. On the other hand, despite the current struggles, remarkable advances have been made in electronic technology during the past few years. These developments have opened a door to very promising enabling technology, with exterior lighting as a main target market. These circumstances seem to have created a perfect storm leading to new strategies for electronic control and driving for (front and rear) exterior lighting. We, at our company, have investigated the enabling technology, challenges, and benefits of this emerging exterior lighting approach, that we call ‘ECU-Less’.

The transition towards battery electric vehicles (BEVs) has increased the focus of vehicle manufacturers on energy efficiency. Ensuring adequate airflow through the heat exchanger is necessary to climatize the vehicle, at the cost of an increase in the aerodynamic drag. With lower cooling airflow requirements in BEVs during driving, the front air intakes could be made smaller and thus be placed with greater freedom. This paper explores the effects on exterior aerodynamics caused by securing a constant cooling airflow through intakes at various positions across the front of the vehicle. High-fidelity simulations were performed on a variation of the open-source AeroSUV model that is more representative of a BEV configuration. To focus on the exterior aerodynamic changes, and under the assumption that the cooling requirements would remain the same for a given driving condition, a constant mass flow boundary condition was defined at the cooling airflow inlets and outlets.

Heat loss is one of the greatest energy losses in engines. More than half of the heat is lost to cooling media and exhaust losses, and they thus dominate the internal combustion engine energy balance. Complex processes affect heat loss to the cylinder walls, including gas motion, spray-wall interaction and turbulence levels. The aim of this work was to experimentally compare the heat transfer characteristics of a stepped-bowl piston geometry to a conventional re-entrant diesel bowl studied previously and here used as the baseline geometry. The stepped-bowl geometry features a low surface-to-volume ratio compared to the baseline bowl, which is considered beneficial for low heat losses. Speed, load, injection pressure, swirl level, EGR rate and air/fuel ratio (λ) were varied in a multi-cylinder light duty engine operated in conventional diesel combustion (CDC) mode.