12-11-2014, 12:16 PM
Abstracts: Most four-cylinder automobiles, depending on their size, have radiator cores that vary from 19''×11.5''×0.7'' to 27''×17''×0.9''. We believe that we can greatly reduce the size of automotive radiators while maintaining the current levels of heat transfer performance expected. Moreover, this can be done without significant modification to the existing internal radiator structure. There are several different approaches that one can take to optimize the heat transfer performance of a smaller radiator design. These include: 1) changing the fin design, 2) increasing the core depth, 3) changing the tube type, 4) changing the flow arrangement, 5) changing the fin material, and 6) increasing the surface area to coolant ratio. The latter method was chosen for our proposed design. To prove this hypothesis, we conducted tests on our current radiator assembly, which measures 24''×17''×1'', to determine the heat transfer performance under typical operating conditions. We found our current radiator assembly to be capable of dissipating heat at a rate of 70729 J/s using the e-Ntu (effectiveness-Ntu), we calculated the heat transfer performance of our new radiator assembly, which has a radiator length 30% smaller than the length of the current design (18''×17''×1''). As expected, the heat transfer performance decreased. However, by increasing the metal-to-air surface area from 384 fins per row to 437 fins per row, we increased the heat transfer performance of our proposed design to the same level as the current design under the same operating conditions.