IIT Bombay Racing Uses Ansys Fluent to Design the Cooling System of an FSAE Car

Challenges

We needed to optimize the angle of inclination of the radiators to balance the air flow through the core and the resultant drag. Lacking the inf rastructure to test the system in a real-world scenario, we turned to simulation, which enabled us to assess the flow rate and drag at different inclination angles in our radiators. Another challenge that we faced was uneven air flow within our accumulator leading to creation of local “hot” spots. We needed a tool to visualize the air flow inside the accumulator to diagnose the problem.

Engineering Solution

• Ansys Fluent was used to dimension sidepods and optimize the angle of inclination of the radiators, enabling us to strike the right balance between drag and the air flow rate through the radiators.
•  Porous media simulation also helped us employ a more accurate model of the radiators in the full-car aerodynamic simulation to more accurately find the air flow rate through the radiator core.
•  Ansys Fluent helped us make design changes to the accumulator cooling system to ensure uniform distribution of air, resulting in a higher overall heat transfer coefficient and decreased cell temperature.

Benefits

Ansys was an indispensible tool that made winning the Engineering Design event at Formula Student 2020 possible while developing us into industry-ready engineers. With the use of Ansys Fluent, our team reduced the overall size and weight of our radiators by over 24 percent and reduce the cell temperature by 15 percent.