Air Quenching
Problem Description
Cooling of an Al engine block from 500 C to 230 C at a cooling rate of 50 C/min.
Challenge
Obtaining the required cooling rate and minimizing the amount of flow recirculation
Benefit of Modeling
- CFD simulation showed significant flow separation occurring, resulting in high static pressure losses
- Simulation also revealed that existing fan is undersized
- Unsteady conjugate flow and heat transfer simulation showed that the actual cooling rate is only 38 C/min, matching field data
- Multiple fans may be virtually tested in the system by simply including their performance curves into the system and obtaining a new operating point for each fan design. Virtual testing reduces experimentation time and reduces scrap.
- Transient temperature variation within the parts may be passed on to stress analysis software and the amount of residual thermal stresses may be obtained.
Unique FLUENT Capabilities Used
- Detailed turbulent flow modeling
- Radiation modeling
- Con ju8gate heat transfer (transient solid conduction with turbulent fluid flow)
- Fan modeling
- Exporting temperature fields within work piece to stress analysis code to obtain thermal stresses
