Vehicle Radiator Fin Pattern Design for Heat Transfer
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing multi-circuit, multi-row heat exchangers face challenges in modifying performance specifications for different cooling circuits while maintaining minimal air pressure loss, which limits their flexibility and efficiency.
Innovation Solution
The heat exchanger employs varying fin patterns across different areas to adjust heat transfer performance, with patterns such as open windows or hatches stamped or rolled into the fins, allowing for different heat transfer capacities in distinct regions with minimal material usage and reduced air pressure loss.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If uniform fin patterns are used across all areas of the heat exchanger, then manufacturing is simplified, but heat transfer performance cannot be optimized for different cooling circuits
Solution Approach 1:
The fin is divided into multiple partial areas, each with different patterns (e.g., different numbers, sizes, or distributions of openings). This allows each region of the heat exchanger to be optimized for specific heat transfer requirements of different cooling circuits while maintaining a generally uniform fin structure for manufacturability.
2Adaptability or versatility
If multiple separate heat exchangers are used for different cooling circuits, then each can be optimized independently, but construction volume and complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
Multiple cooling circuits are integrated into a single heat exchanger unit with multiple rows of pipes. Each cooling circuit has its own inlet and outlet tanks, but they share common fin structures and airflow paths, reducing overall system complexity while maintaining independent optimization capability.
3Productivity
If fin patterns with many openings are used to improve heat transfer, then heat dissipation increases, but air pressure loss increases
Solution Approach 1:
Different partial areas of the fin have different pattern densities. Areas requiring higher heat transfer have more openings, while areas where pressure preservation is critical have fewer or smaller openings. This local differentiation optimizes the balance between heat dissipation and air pressure loss for each specific region.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This approach enables flexible modification of performance specifications for individual cooling circuits within a compact and cost-effective heat exchanger design, optimizing heat transfer while minimizing aerodynamic drag and construction volume.
Implementation Method 1
fins being arranged between the cooling pipes which are flooded with air and which extend at least across the cooling pipes of two adjacent rows of pipes
Implementation Method 2
These fins can take a meandering form or a similar form, and may be brazed onto on or two adjacent pipes in the area of its curve. This creates a mechanically solid and heat-conducting connection between the fins and the pipes
Implementation Method 3
a cooling agent flows through the internal combustion engine, is heated up, and then cooled down again during its subsequent flow through the heat exchanger
Implementation Method 4
When a heat exchanger is flooded with a fluid such as air, this air flow experiences an aerodynamic drag. This brings about a difference between a fluid pressure ahead of and after the heat exchanger
Data Source
AI summary
A heat exchanger with multiple cooling circuits includes fins featuring at least two adjacent areas, a first one of the areas arranged in a first row of pipes and a second one of the areas arranged in a second row of pipes. A number of patterns are arranged in each of the areas. The number of patterns is determined by a specified heat transfer performance requirement for each of the areas.