Thermal Management of Automotive Heat Exchanger Under Obstructed Cooling Airflow Path: A Case Study

Owing to the attractive front-end styling and restricted available space in the automotive underhood zone, both upstream and downstream directions of heat exchangers are subjected to obstructions in the cooling airflow path. These obstructions disturb the airflow distribution and influence the thermal performance of the heat exchanger. As obstructions are inevitable in the cooling airflow path, a new approach must be developed to study and control the influence of obstructions on the heat exchanger performance. In this paper, a new methodology is proposed to predict the heat transfer performance of automotive radiator for practical range of blockage areas. The air velocity distribution over the heat exchanger face is investigated using a computational fluid dynamics tool under an obstructed airflow path. The thermal performance of the heat exchanger is evaluated with the existing correlation. The obtained results are validated with experimental results. Further, the consideration of obstructions/blockage in the cooling airflow path, along with an existing radiator performance testing study (IS 13687:1993), can provide better input to the front-end design of vehicles.