CFD Simulation on Nanofluid Coolant of Gasoline Direct Injection Engine 2017-01-2219

The conventional cooling fluids in vehicle engine cooling water jacket have relatively poor heat transfer performance. The key to enhance heat transfer in cooling-jacket is to research a kind of new coolants. Nanofluids have heat transfer enhancement merits. In present study, the numerical simulation on Fe3O4 nanofluid flow in cooling water jacket of Gasoline direct injection engine was performed using computational fluid dynamics ( CFD) software FLUENT. The heat transfer coefficient of nanofluids was calculated and verified by experiment. Fe3O4 nano-particles were used in mixture of water/ethylene glycol as a base fluid. The thermal performance of the nanofluid was studied, also the thermal performance of a cooling-jacket was studied with CFD technology. The simulation was performed for different volumetric concentrations of(1%,2%,5%) nanofluids at different engine speeds. The results showed that heat transfer enhanced compared to the base fluid. But the pressure loss enlarged in cooling-jacket with nanofluids. The heat transfer coefficient enhancement about 62.5% compared to the base fluid with 5% volume percent, but the max pressure loss about 45kpa in the cooling-jacket. Then the influence of heat transfer enhancement on vehicle energy consumption was analyzed.