Automotive engineering application

Water radiators, oil coolers, intercoolers, oil-water heat exchangers, diesel oil coolers and gearbox oil coolers are a few examples among the variety of heat exchanger applications in automotive engineering.

The numerical simulation of such devices demands for the combined calculation of fluid flow and solid body heat conduction. The integration of such simulation into the virtual design process of engines requires fast numerical methods, based on a parameterised CAD representation and semi-automatic mesh generation.

Fig. 1: Oil-water heat exchanger

Fig. 2: Components of the heat exchanger

Figure 1 shows the configuration of a typical oil-water heat exchanger. The device is built in several layers, every second supplied with water and oil respectively. The CAD representation of the individual components is represented in figure 2. To increase the rate of heat transfer, turbulence generators are placed in the flow path, which results in a complicated flow geometry.

Fig. 3: Fluid domain

Fig. 4: Details of the fluid velocity vectors

Fig. 5: Distribution (velocity component perpendicular to the main flow direction