CFD analysis of fluid flow and heat transfer of an automotive radiator with nano fluid

Internal Combustion engines in the automobile applications are becoming highly power-packed with increasing power to weight and/or volume ratio. Further, the space available under the bonnet is also decreasing due to the ever increasing demand of small cars by the customers. Nano fluids are a new class of heat transfer fluids engineered by dispersing nanometre - size solid particles in traditional heat transfer fluids. In the present study a Nano fluid is used as a coolant in a radiator model and is analysed for evaluating the fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics. A radiator model is modelled in CATIA modelling software and is meshed using a pre-processing software GAMBIT. Three volumes are created i.e., coolant, radiator and air and overall pressure, temperature and velocity distribution of coolant and air are analysed and presented by using a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) environment software FLUENT. Results have shown that the rate of heat transfer is better when Nano fluid (Al₂O₃ + Water) is used as coolant, than the conventional coolant. Velocity distribution graphs shown that the radiator design have to be optimized to eliminate water stagnation.