Análisis térmico e hidráulico de diferentes geometrías de tubos para mejorar el desempeño de un radiador de automóvil

Abstract

Nowadays the automotive industry requires more powerful and compact engines, which demand that the cooling systems must be improved using new technologies to attend the aim to maintain the engine working at optimum temperature, the cooling system must be adjusted to the dimensions and weight set to avoid the increase of fuel expense. In the present work a numerical study to analyze the thermal and hydraulic performance of a car radiator is carried out. The research focuses on analyzing different geometries for the tubes that make up the radiator, inside of tubes a mixture of 80% water and 20% ethylene glycol is used as the cooling fluid. On the results the global Nusselt numbers for the different geometries, as well as the total pressure drop along the radiator tube are reported. A comparison of the thermal and hydraulic performance for the different geometries analyzed is made. From the results the best geometry to increase heat transfer is chosen, as well as the geometry with the best balance between entropy generation due to heat transfer and pressure drop is chosen.