Experimental Study and CFD Analysis of Copper Radiator for Passenger Cars

In the present scenario, the usage and importance of radiator is increasing gradually. Engine cooling system takes care of excess heat produced during engine operation and it regulates the engine surface temperature at optimum value. Development in engine cooling system is often required to improve its performance and heat transfer rate. Though aluminium radiators have become common, still many established industries have facility to manufacture copper radiators. Cuprobraze radiators are noted to perform nearer to aluminium radiators. In this work, an attempt has been made to investigate the performance of copper radiator used in passenger cars. Behaviour of a copper radiator at different air velocities was studied by experimental method. The existing copper radiator is modelled using solidworks software and validation of performance done by fluid flow software. The deviation between the experimental and simulation results shows only 8%. Thus it met engineering requirements. So, this method may be taken as an effective approach for the prediction of heat transfer performance in a radiator. This will form as the base to analyse the performance of cuprobraze by modifying the material properties and its parameter.