Simulations of complete vehicles in cold climate at partial and full load driving conditions

Sammanfattning: In this study, CFD simulations of a complete truck are carried out to investigate the effect of altered simulation settings at cold climatic conditions. The aim of this study is to obtain knowledge through CFD simulations performed on a selected driving condition namely at a vehicle speed of 93 kph, an ambient temperature of -20 °C and for an engine operating at 25 % load. Data from measurement carried out in a climatic wind tunnel is available and utilized as boundary conditions for the simulations.The simulations are performed under steady state conditions utilizing the commercial software STAR-CCM+. The first simulation case (reference simulation case) is constructed through java macro-scripts as per the standard VTM settings at Scania. The results from the simulations are compared with the measurement data utilizing temperature validation probes. These probes are located around the engine and measure the air temperature in the underhood engine compartment. The results from the first simulation case show that the temperature of each probe located in front of the engine and above the engine agrees well with the measured probe temperatures. But the temperature of the remaining probes show larger differences with the measured probe temperatures. To investigate the larger differences in probe temperatures, additional simulations are carried out by changing specific simulation settings. For instance, this is achieved by including thermal radiation in the physics continua. Finally, a simulation of engine load of 100 % is carried out and the results from the simulation are compared with the measurement from the same engine load as well as the results from the measurement and simulation of 25 % engine load. The results from all the simulations indicate that additional boundaryconditions and/or different methodologies need to be explored to better replicate the cold climatic conditions in the simulations.