An efficient method to predict the heat transfer performance of a louver fin radiator in an automotive power system

A numerical method to efficiently predict heat transfer phenomena of a louver fin radiator was presented — multi-scale semimicroscopic heat exchange (SHE) method. This method consists of microscopic analysis and semimicroscopic analysis. To predict heat transfer characteristics of a louver fin element, the microscopic analysis employs modeling of the detailed geometry of a fin element. Numerical models for the heat transfer rate and flow friction derived from the microscopic analysis are then used for simulations of the full radiator model in semimicroscopic analysis. In the semimicroscopic analysis, conjugate heat transfer is analyzed for the domain with the radiator whose louver fin area is replaced by a porous media. The results with the proposed method show a good agreement with the experimental data. The proposed method can be used to predict flow and heat transfer characteristics of a realistic louver fin radiator with a reduced cost and sufficient accuracy.