Vehicle Thermal Management Simulation Using a Rapid Omni-Tree Based Adaptive Cartesian Mesh Generation Methodology

CFD simulation of vehicle under-hood and under-body poses several challenges. Specifically, the complexity of the geometry involved makes the use of traditional mesh generation approaches, based on the boundary-to-interior methodology, impractical and time consuming. The current work presents the use of an interior-to-boundary method wherein the need for creating a ‘water-tight’ surface mesh is not a pre-requisite for volume mesh generation. The application of the new method is demonstrated for an actual passenger vehicle under-hood model with nearly a hundred components. Coupled radiation/convection simulations are performed to obtain the complete airflow and thermal map of the engine compartment. Results are validated with test data. The new method results in significant gains in efficiency over traditional approaches allowing the simulation tool to be used effectively in the vehicle development process.