Analysis of Water-Cooled Intercooler Thermal Characteristics

Abstract

With the incremental power of construction machinery diesel engines, the power performance of diesel engines and the pollutant emissions from the exhaust gas have imposed increasingly stringent requirements on the intake cooling system of diesel engines. This paper compared the j/f evaluation factors for fin unit bodies of water-cooled intercooler (including straight fins and rectangular misaligned fins) by means of CFD simulation, and found that the rectangular misaligned fins had an 8% advantage in comprehensive performance. With the rectangular staggered fin intercooler, it was found that under the same conditions, the cooling efficiency of the dual-pass water-cooled intercooler is higher than that of the single-pass water-cooled intercooler, and the uniformity factor of the temperature difference field of the dual-pass water-cooled intercooler is 1.5% higher than that of the latter. The accuracy of the overall simulation of the intercooler is verified by the field test. The dual-pass and single-pass water-cooled intercooler both can maintain heat balance under working conditions, and its average air inlet temperature is 10 °C lower than that of the original air-cooled intercooler, which provides support for further reducing the engine air inlet temperature. The results provide a theoretical basis for the performance improvement of water-cooled intercoolers.

Research on the Optimization of a Diesel Engine Intercooler Structure Based on Numerical Simulation

“…However, the high-temperature and high-pressure intake air generated by a turbocharger dramatically increases the thermal and mechanical load of the internal combustion engine [3,4]. To solve the negative impact of turbocharging, engineers have developed a charge intercooler system, by placing an intercooler between the outlet of the compressor and the inlet of the engine, which could reduce the inlet temperature and increase the air density, thus improving the combustion efficiency [5][6][7]. The experiment has proven that the charge intercooling system could significantly improve engine dynamics, economy, and cleanliness without increasing the mechanical and thermal load of the engine [8].…”

Optimization Design and Comparative Analysis of Enhanced Heat Transfer and Anti-Vibration Performance of Twisted-Elliptic-Tube Heat Exchanger: A Case Study

“…Chen et al [12] exploited the corrugated tube to replace the circular tube and studied the performance of the corrugated-tube natural gas compressor intercooler. Yu et al [13] used the numerical method to compare the j/f evaluation factors of fin unit bodies of intercoolers that had straight fins versus rectangular misaligned fins. Most of the current studies were based on the tube-side performance improvement of the intercooler, while the baffles were still adopted in the shell side to support tube bundles.…”