A Novel Active Cooling System for Internal Combustion Engine Using Shape Memory Alloy Based Thermostat

Abstract

Pollutants in exhaust gases and the high fuel consumption of internal combustion engines remain key issues in the automotive industry despite the emergence of electric vehicles. Engine overheating is a major cause of these problems. Traditionally, engine overheating was solved using electric pumps and cooling fans with electrically operated thermostats. This method can be applied using active cooling systems that are currently available on the market. However, the performance of this method is undermined by its delayed response time to activate the main valve of the thermostat and the dependence of the coolant flow direction control on the engine. This study proposes a novel active engine cooling system incorporating a shape memory alloy-based thermostat. After discussing the operating principles, the governing equations of motion were formulated and analyzed using COMSOL Multiphysics and MATLAB. The results show that the proposed method improved the response time required to change the coolant flow direction and led to a coolant temperature difference of 4.90 °C at 90 °C cooling conditions. This result indicates that the proposed system can be applied to existing internal combustion engines to enhance their performance in terms of reduced pollution and fuel consumption.