BSME-ASME International Conference on Thermal Engineering 31 December 2001 2 January 2002, Dhaka ISBN

Improvement of New Fin Design for Automotive Water Cooling System

Rosli Abu Bakar1 , Teoh Ka Jin1 and Mardani Ali Sera
1

Automotive Development Centre, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Fakulti Kejuruteraan Mekanikal, 81310 UTM Skudai, Johor. MALAYSIA

ABSTRACT The purpose of this investigation is to study the effect of new fin design on the cooling system. There are seven major systems in an automotive vehicle and the engine system can be taken as the heart of the automobile. The heart is the most crucial and critical system among the seven. The cooling system is one of the systems that make up the engine system. However, it is often being neglected although it is equally important compared to any system in the automobile. In this work, Finite Element Method (FEM) investigates the analysis of the tube-fin in the radiator core. Also, to find the relation between certain geometrical and material property changes on the effect heat transfer of the radiator core. According to the results of this study, the new design fins have the influence on the performance of the cooling system. The results of this investigation will be shown in the form of coloured contour plot and the temperature concentration shall be visible. Keywords: Radiator Core, Tube, Fin, FEM, Cooling System 1. INTRODUCTION Cooling system is one of the seven major systems needed to ensure to smooth running of an automotive vehicle, but it is the most neglected system among the others. This is because most drivers have the mentality that this system does not contribute to provide their vehicle with power. This situation can be described with this metaphor, the major "systems" in the human body. For example kidney, the organ involved in filtering the body fluids does not make the body stronger nor does it make the mind wiser, but without it, man is as good as dead because the whole blood system will not be in balance. Similar to the cooling system, without it, the engine will not be able to function properly, at its worst condition, the engine will fail. The internal combustion engine (ICE) produces heat and that heat is transformed into kinetic energy by the pistons, connecting rod and other mechanical components inside the system. However, the heat produced is not 100% used for this purpose. It is estimated that

about one third of the heat is loss through the exhaust system, one third removed by the cooling system and only about one third used for producing torque at the fly wheel. The cylinder temperature can reach between 88C and 104C at the water jacket. Hot enough to cause deformation of any metal, or even melt. The presence of the cooling system helps to prevent this by removing excess heat (1~10). Therefore it is clear that the function of a cooling system is to remove heat but this does not mean that the more heat it removes, the better a cooling system will be. The cooling system is designed to maintain the metal temperature of the engine within safe limits by removing excessively high temperatures from certain engine components subjected to excess heat from the combustion process. In this investigation, the effect of cooling system in an ICE will be analyzed and watercooled designs will be discussed more rather than air-cooled designs. The cooling system is divided into two main groups - water-cooled and air-cooled. The significant difference between the two is water-cooled design uses liquid as its medium of heat transfer while aircooled uses air as its medium of heat transfer. The objective of this study is to find the effect of various design of radiator fin on the cooling system of the ICE, and to suggest a design of radiator fin to develop base on the results obtained. 2. THE METHOD OF INVESTIGATION 2.1 The Heat Transfer Analyzes In an ICE, the heat flows from the hotter gasses in the combustion chamber into the cooler cylinder bore and cylinder head. In addition, the heat flows again from these hot walls into the cooler coolant of the cooling system. The coolant will carry the heat to the radiator and transfer the heat to it, which is cooler. At the radiator core, heat is finally transferred to the ram air that is cooler than the radiator cores thus dissipating heat effectively. Heat transfers or flows at the following three possible ways - conduction, convection and/or radiation. From the radiator core in Fig 1, the investigation is then focused in on a single unit of radiator core, showing only the tubes and fins. Only half of the tube on each side of the fin is modeled. This is because the tube is a symmetrical model and it is not necessary to model the entire tube, half of the tube is sufficient to represent the tube. As for the fin, this is considered as a unit because the following part of the fin is just a repetition of what is shown in Fig.1. The type of radiator core used has the following physical characteristic: i. Fin Pitch = 1000 fin/meter ii. Area-volume ratio = 34.1 m2 / m3 The first step would be to calculate the thermal resistances, R in this system. The initial step is to determine the resistance for the heat-transferred-through-conduction section, Rt and Rc both representing resistance for tube and resistance due to contact.

Figure 1. Single unit/cell of fin, tube and thermal circuit

where,

Rt = Lt / (kt A) Rc = Rc / Ac Lt ; Length of tube kt ; Thermal conductivity of tube A ; Area of tube at the outer tube (mm2) Rc ; Thermal contact resistance Ac : Area of contact between tube and fin (mm2)

(1) (2)

The following step is to determine the resistance by the tube surface (base), Rt,b and fin, Rt,f which transfers heat through convection. Rt,b = 1 / h A (3) Rt,f = b / qf (4) where, ; Efficiency h ; Convection coefficient A ; Area of outer tube exposed to convection. b ; Temperature at the outer tube surface (base) qf ; Transfer rate The equivalent resistance for convection must be obtained. Requiv = (Rt,b-1 + Rt,f-1)-1 (5) The total resistance without radiation can be expressed as Rtot = 2(Rt + Rc) + Requiv (6) From this, the heat transfer rate for conduction and convection can be obtained as (7) qcond+conv = T / Rtot where, T ; Temperature difference from base to tip The transfer rate for radiation is qrad = A (T14 T24) (8) where, A ; area subjected to radiation ; Emissivity ; constant 5.676 x 10-8 W/m2 K4 T ; temperature The total heat transfer rate can be expressed as (9) qtot = qcond+conv + qrad 2.2 Simulation Procedures The model of the core has been created in SolidWorks, and CosmosWorks tab is selected. The model created is simplified in SolidWorks. Due to its symmetrical geometry, only half of the model will be used for analysis, and only one section will be used for the purpose of analysis. This method is used so that the Solver does not need to perform unnecessary additional calculations on the other symmetrical part. Additional calculations will increase the time needed to run the analysis; for the corporate world, more time means higher costs. There are a few assumptions made to perform this investigation: i. Steady state condition. ii. Air is travelling in laminar flow. iii. Constant properties.

iv. One-dimensional heat transfer. v. The fin to be operated in extreme condition. The boundary conditions will be defined by selecting the faces and adding definitions such as temperature, convection as other thermal properties, a small window will pop up. In this window, the users will the asked to insert certain constants and values. The temperature on the wall of the tube is estimated to be 393K, and an assumption that the temperature is constant at the tube is being made. A convection property such as the film coefficient is taken at 60W/m2K and a bulk temperature of 303K. This condition is to satisfy the assumption of extreme condition. The concept of FEM is to break down the complex geometry of a part into small elements and this process is called meshing. The 4 node tetrahedral solid, which is a fourpoint element, is chosen here because it is most suitable to be used in a solid mesh. Then the command to create a mesh is selected, the size of the mesh can be determined, it can be as small as 3mm but smaller elements means that the total elements will be greater. When there is too many elements to perform calculations on, the time needed will be increase, thus making the work unproductive. The number of elements can be as many as 10000 elements and the time taken for the solver to run will be around several minutes only. After the meshing completed, the part will be sent for analysis. Fig.2 shows a meshed model. The thermal analysis results folder can give a color plot base on the heat distribution and other thermal properties too.

Figure 2. Meshing of the model

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

3.1 Effect of Tube-fin on various fin thickness Figure 3 shows the effect of thickness on the tube fin. The model TH3 is the actual radiator core used. Model TH1 and TH2 are models with fin thickness of less than 0.05mm while TH4 and TH5 are models with thickness of more than 0.05mm. All temperature is in Kelvin. The best condition is to get the highest possible minimum temperature because the maximum possible heat rate would result if the entire fin surface, as well as the exposed base, were maintained at the base temperature. There for, a fin thickness at 0.05mm would be best based on minimum temperature. Based on flux, it decreases as the fin thickness increases. These decreases only began at around 0.05mm, suggesting again that any thickness beyond this point would decrease its heat transfer rate. Based on temperature gradient, the similar pattern is demonstrated by the

curve but the decrease occurs slightly after 0.05mm. The five temperature plots, it is shown that as the thickness of the fin is increased, more heat is transferred to the middle of the fin. 3.2 Effect of Tube-fin on various fin shapes The effects of tube fin on various fin shapes are shown in Fig. 4. The shapes designed are according to an objective to reduce material in the middle part of the fin because in the first stage, it does not transfer much heat due to the relatively lower temperature. Model SH5 is a newly suggested design with material in the middle of the fin removed. The same characteristics can be observed in Fig 4. This behavior will lead to deeper investigation of the holes used on the fin shape.

Fin Thickness 0.015mm (TH1)

Fin Thickness 0.030mm (TH2)

Fin Thickness 0.100mm (TH5)

Fin Thickness 0.080mm (TH4)

Fin Thickness 0.050mm (TH3)

Figure 3. Effect of Tube Fin on various thickness

Model (SH1)

Model (SH2)

Model (SH3)

Model (SH4)

Model (SH5)

Figure 4. Effect of Tube Fin on various Fin Shapes

3.3 Effect of Tube-fin on fin shapes with holes Figure 4 shows the effect of tube fin on fin shapes with holes. The following models are design based on model SH2; therefore the model names are given an extension to represent the number of holes. The holes are 1mm in diameter. The following model has the same scale in order to allow easier comparison to be done based on one parameter change, which is the number of holes on the fin. The minimum temperature of each of the model maintained the same even though the number of holes in each model is different. This shows that the number of holes (uniform hole diameter) does not affect the temperature drop. However, the flux and temperature gradient reacts differently. Their value increase steady as the number of holes is increased. This is so because of the total area subjected to heat convection at the fin gradually increases.

Model SH2-2

Model SH2-6

Model SH2-8

Model SH2-10

Fig 4. Effect of Tube-fin on various fin shapes with holes 3.4 Effect of Tube-fin on fin shapes with variable hole diameter

Model SH5-2

Model SH5-3

Model SH5-4

Figure 5. Effect of Tube-fin on fin shapes with variable hole diameter Figure 5 shown the effect of tube-fin on fin shapes with variable hole diameter. As shown in Fig. the diameter of the hole is increased, the minimum temperature, flux and temperature gradient is increased, which is desirable for a high efficient fin. From this stage, the data is compared to the previous stage to determine whether a fin with little but large holes are better or fins with many but little holes are better.

Comparing model SH5-4 shows to have a higher minimum temperature at 390.3K compared to SH5-2 is 389.7K; and also a higher flux, which are about 15% higher. All these are characteristic that favors a good fin design. With this, the design at stage four, fins with holes as large as 5mm at the middle of its fin is more favorable and it is used for the following stage, which is to analyze the model variable materials. 3.5 Effect of Tube-fin on various materials, The material selection for radiator core, material with high thermal conductivity, high radiation emissivity and high convection coefficient would be ideal. Based on the material selection chart, the probable materials to be used are in the Aluminum Alloy region. Manufacturers used to produce radiator with copper alloy but they are using more aluminum alloy now. Therefore, a series of analysis shall be carried out using different Aluminum Alloy grades. The temperature distribution plot scale in this section has been adjusted to be uniform so that the temperature of each model can be compared directly. Each model uses a different material and the extension model name shows the grade number of aluminum alloy (e.g. SH5-1350 means it uses Aluminum Alloy (1350 alloy)).

Model SH5-2024

Model SH5-2014

Model SH5-3003

Model SH5-1060

Model SH5-1345

Model SH5-1350

Fig. 6 Effect of Tube-fin on various materials, Figure 6 shows the effect of tube fin on various materials. The models are arranged in a sequence that the thermal conductivity increase. As this increase, the minimum temperature is increased, thus giving the fin design a better heat transfer rate since the heat at the base of the fin can be able to reach the middle of the fin. 4. CONCLUSION This investigation has revealed the importance of the cooling system and the effect of an inefficient cooling system on the internal combustion engine. A method of thermal analysis using FEM has been discussed and it was successfully carried out. The relation between radiator fin design and heat transfer efficiency can be known by performing the analysis. From here, fin design with more efficiency was determined from the five stages of analysis. From the first stage, it is shown that the ideal fin thickness for radiator

fin is around 0.05mm. As the analyses proceed on the stage two, three and four respectively, a fin design as shown in Fig. 3 is more superior to the other designs. This radiator core tube-fin design is unique in a way that it eliminates the unnecessary parts on the fin that does not contribute to transferring heat. Furthermore, the fin surface encourages ram air to be turbulent when it passes through it, thus increasing heat dissipation. This proposed design cut down material usage by almost 21%. Along with less material required, weight and cost will be reduced accordingly. From stage two analysis, we know that the original design of model TH3 and the proposed design model SH5 has a similar performance, therefore model SH5 will put itself ahead with the economy factor that it holds. However, this is only true with the assumption that the manufacturing process and costs are more or less equal. The tube-fin design is analyzed with various material properties. As it can be found in the theory of heat transfer, the heat distribution improves as the thermal conductivity constant increases. Various aluminum alloys were tested and it was discovered that aluminum alloy (alloy 1350) has the best heat transfer characteristic. This is probably due to its relatively highest number of thermal conductivity. Model SH5, which has a surface to volume ratio of 32.79 m2 / m3 should raise sufficient attention to continue research on the design of fin in the radiator core. A study on the effect of this fin on the entire radiator using computational analysis can be proposed to continue this investigation. This would analyze the effect of a selected tube-fin design with a new approach instead of the conventional Log Mean Temperature Difference (LMTD) method or even the Number of Transfer Units (NTU) method. The entire radiator core, not a single cell, be modeled and send for thermal analysis. This would give a further insight on how will this tube-fin design perform. REFERENCE 1. Harry Heywood (1985). "Automobile Cooling System." Newnes Technical Books. 2. Richard F. Armento(1979). "Automotive Cooling System (Training and Reference Manual)" Reston Publishing Company Inc. 3. William H. Crouse, Donal L. Anglin(1981) "Automotive Fuel, Lubricating and Cooling Systems" 6th Edition McGraw Hill. 4. Thomas Birch(1986) "Automotive Cooling System" Prentice-Hall Inc. 5. Don Knowles(1985) "Automotive Cooling System" Reston Publishing Company Inc. 6. Heinz Heisler(1999) "Vehicle and Engine Technology" 2nd Edition Society of Automotive Engineering. 7. Frank P. Incropera, David D. DeWitt(1996) "Fundamentals of Heat and Mass Transfer" 4th Edition John Wiley & Sons 8. Christij Geankoplis(1995) "Transport Process and Unit Operations" 3rd Edition Prentice Hall International 9. Paul Van de Ven, Jean-Pierre Maes "The Effect of Silicate Content in Engine Coolants on the Corrosion Protection of the Aluminum Heat-Rejecting Surfaces" SAE Journal 940498 10. William H. Crouse, Donald L. Anglin "Automotive Mechanics" 10th Edition McGrawHill Book Co.