Vehicle Underhood Environment Investigations Using a Simplified Test Rig

Abstract

Energy efficiency and thermal management continue to be critical areas in the vehicle development process. Independent of whether it is a vehicle with an internal combustion engine, hybrid, or fully electrical, engineers require proper and accurate tools to comprehend heat transfer in engine bays. However, developing such tools using a fully detailed production geometry can be challenging. This work presents a simplified and flexible test rig design of the vehicle underhood environment in two different variants: a passenger car and a commercial truck. The rig design in CAD and experimental data for the two rig configurations are made available upon request. These data will allow for the validation of different simulation approaches against the experimental dataset. An example of such a validation is presented in this paper. The load case scenario represented includes constant speed driving under heavy loads continued by a complete halt, which is followed by soaking for 100 min. The differences in experimental results for different rig variants are shown and analyzed. A good correlation between the experiments and CFD is obtained.

Keywords

• CFD
• thermal management
• underhood flow
• engine test rig
• testing