A

PROJECT REPORT
on
“Comparison between two different coolants of
radiator using Ansys fluent”
Session: 2022-23
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of
Technology in Mechanical Engineering

Under Guidance Of
Dr. Nagendra Prasad Yadav
(Head of Department Mechanical Engineering)
By
Pradeep Kumar (2004340026)
Pranav Agarwal (2004340029)
Rohit Singh (2004340032)
Shishant Kumar Vimal (2004340039)
Ayush Singh (2004340015)

Semester: 5th

Department of Mechanical Engineering

Bundelkhand Institute of Engineering & Technology
(An Autonomous Institute)
 BUNDELKHAND INSTITUTE OF
ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY,
JHANSI (2022-23)

CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that project titled" Comparison between two different
coolants of radiator using Ansys fluent " has been successfully completed
by Pranav Agarwal (2004340029), Pradeep Kumar (2004340026), Rohit
Singh (2004340032), Shishant Kumar Vimal (2004340039), Ayush Singh
(2004340015), under my guidance in partial fulfillment of the Bachelor's
Degree in Mechanical engineering from Bundelkhand Institute of
Engineering and Technology, Jhansi U.P India 284128 During the academic
year 2022-2023.

Date:

Prof. Nagendra Prasad Yadav

Head of the Department

Mechanical Engineering
 Acknowledgment

It is our great pleasure to acknowledge your support and encouragement. We have

received from the people along the way of the research work. First and foremost,
we would like to express our heartiest thanks to Dr. Nagendra Prasad Yadav who
helped a lot to make this project successful and completed on time. We would also
like to express our gratitude to Dr. Nagendra Prasad Yadav Professor and Head of
Department, Mechanical Engineering Department with all humility. We offer our
deepest feelings of gratitude to the blessings and mercy of the supreme persons for
providing me with everything we need to take this project to the final destination.

Pranav Agarwal (2004340029)

Pradeep Kumar (2004340026)
Rohit Singh (2004340032)
Shishant Kumar Vimal (2004340039)
Ayush Singh (2004340015)
 Abstract

Radiators are used to transfer thermal energy from one medium to another for the
purpose of cooling. They are used for cooling internal combustion engines, mainly in
automobiles, railway locomotives, stationary power generating plants etc. The radiator
essentially transfers heat from the coolant inside to the surrounding ambient air
enhancing performance of the engine. A model of radiator with rectangular and
louvered fins are developed using Pro/Engineer and further CFD analysis is performed
with ANSYS 14.5 for a relative comparison of geometry of fins on performance of the
radiator. Aluminum alloy 6061 is considered in either case to analyze the heat transfer
capabilities of louvered fins and rectangular fins.

Keywords: Rectangular fin, louvered fin, Aluminum alloy 6061, Automotive radiator, Nano fluid, Wavy
and Louvered fin, Circular tube geometry, performance parameters.
 Table of content

S. no. Topic

1. Introduction

2. Literature review

3. Aim & Scope

4. Modelling and Simulation

5. Result and discussion

6. Conclusion

7. References
 CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION
Radiators are heat exchangers used to transfer heat or thermal energy from one medium to another for
the purpose of cooling and heating. Automobile radiator is used to cool down automotive engine. If
it’s not done various problems like knocking, piston deformation, cylinder deformation etc. can
happen. If radiator works properly cooling system will work properly in turn engine performance will
increase.

Radiators are used for cooling internal combustion engines, mainly in automobiles but also in piston-
engine aircraft, railway locomotives, motorcycles, stationary generating plant or any similar use of
such an engine. Internal combustion engines are often cooled by passing a liquid called engine coolant
through the engine block, where it is heated, then through the radiator itself where it loses heat to the
atmosphere, and then back to the engine in a closed loop. Engine coolant is usually water-based, but
may also be oil. It is common to employ a water pump to force the engine coolant to circulate, and
also for an axial fan to force air through the radiator.
 The secondary flow forms two sets of distinct recirculating vortices along the diameter of the
pipe, as shown in Fig. 1. This secondary flow has the function of enhancing heat transfer due to
liquid mixing in the tube. The improved heat transfer coefficient in curved tubes was due to
centrifugal force pushing the fluid particles towards the core region, creating a secondary flow
field.
The strength of the secondary flow generated in the tube is a function of the tube diameter (d)
and the coil diameter (D). This increased intensity of secondary flow allows for better fluid
mixing and better heat transfer at the same flow rate.
Increase in tube and coil diameters, which reduced the occurring secondary flow and thus
reduced the heat transfer coefficient.

First, the coolants flow through this passage in the engine block and pick up the heat from the engine
as shown in Figure 2. The liquid which is heated passes through a rubber hose and goes towards the
radiator. Then, the compartment of an engine in the car which intakes the air stream will cool this
liquid. This is how the cooling system works. An equipment called thermostat which is located in
between the radiator and engine and will ensure the coolant always maintains above an optimum level
of temperature. When the temp of coolant tumbles lower than the optimum temp, the coolant's flow
will be blocked by the thermostat into the radiator and this forces the liquid through a bypass which
directs back to the engine. In order to avert the boiling of coolant, the engine cooling network is
sketched such that it can be pressurized which makes coolants boiling point to increase substantially
under applied pressure
 CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

Literature review findings on helical coil heat exchanger are mentioned in this
section.

• In this application, heat pipes were incorporated into the radiator of the
automotive engine for more efficient heat transfer. The cooling load of the
radiator can be increased for heavy-duty engines, while the power consumption
of the cooling fan can be reduced for higher energy efficiency.

• This study adopts Water and Ethylene Glycol (C2H5OH) Nano-coolant to

enhance the heat dissipation performance of this radiator using air cooled
surroundings.

• The cooling properties of a locally formulated coolant (water) vis-a-vis, its

boiling characteristics, Logarithmic Mean Temperature Difference, Convective
Heat Transfer Coefficient were investigated alongside with a common coolant
Ethylene Glycol

• This research paper works on measuring the coefficients of heat transfer in the
radiator of an automobile with 2 different functional liquids: Al2O3 EG/W based
Nanofluid (NF) and ZrO2 EG/W based NF by experimental methods and at
different magnitudes of the level and the underneath presumptions are created
from the analysis.

• This paper outlines the effect on cooling capacity while using nanofluid based
coolant in engine cooling system. Through this, it was discovered that nano-fluid
increases heat transfer which has higher thermal conductivity than base coolant
which blends of 50%/50% ethylene glycol and water. When same heat transfer
occurs compared to base one of the radiators, its core area can be reduced.
Ethylene glycol as a coolant in the radiator when used compared to the nanofluid,
the thermal performance of a radiator is raised by increasing power
 CHAPTER 3

AIM & SCOPE

• This project focuses finding the convective heat transfer coefficient and Log
Mean Temperature Difference of automobile Radiator and analyzing various
parameters that affect the efficiency of radiator, varying various parameters
such as flow rate and temperature. It also works on radiator performance
analysis.

• With the upgrowing technology in the automobile sector, heating of engine is

considerably a big problem and then become the coolant. This project
represents a difference between common coolant water and commercial
coolant Ethylene Glycol.

• On analyzing the radiator based on certain parameters we can use the

findings for reduction in labor costs and working hours.
 CHAPTER 4

MODELLING

A compact automotive radiator is a type of heat exchanger, is made of four major

components as coolant inlet tank, outlet tank, pressure cap and core. The main
subcomponents of the core are tubes and fins. Circular tubes are more effective for
automotive engine applications due to their low drag compared with elliptical tubes.

A radiator is designed on the Ansys space claim. Model is shown below:

Fig: model

Mathematical modelling

The governing equations are assumed to be steady state for in compressible fluid and
the fluid inside the tube has Newtonian behavior. The density of the water and ethylene
glycol-based nanofluids is almost constant under pressure. Ambient temperature and an
air velocity through the air-cooled exchanger are assumed to constant. Inlet velocity and
temperature of the circular tube is uniform. Thermal equilibrium is established between
the Nanoparticles and the base fluid. The wall resistance and fouling factors are taken
as negligible.

The following assumptions have been made for analysis:

1) The fin material is homogeneous and isotropic.
2) The temperature at any cross section of the fin is uniform i.e., t=t(x) only.
3) Properties of nanofluid as well as air assumed to be constant.
4) Heat flow is k-epsilon model.
5) All the heat rejected from nanofluid absorbed by air flow through radiator.
6) There is no heat generation.
7) Contact thermal resistance is negligible.

MESHING

Initially a relatively coarser mesh is generated. This mesh contains mixed cells
(triangular and quadrilateral cells) having both triangular and quadrilateral faces at
the boundaries. It is meant to reduce numerical diffusion as much as possible by
structuring the mesh in a well manner, particularly near the wall region. Later on, a
fine mesh is generated.

• Nodes = 311843
• Elements = 1259324
 CHAPTER 4
SOLUTION

• Model: Energy is set to ON position.

• Viscous model is selected K-Epsilon.
• Materials: Water-liquid, Ethylene Glycol and Aluminum is selected from the
fluent database.
• Cell zone conditions: Fluid. Boundary conditions: Boundary conditions are
used according to the need of the model. The inlet and outlet conditions are
defined as mass inlet and pressure outlet. No slip condition is considered for
each wall.
• The solution methods are specified as follows: Scheme = Simple, Gradient=
Least Square Cell Based, Pressure = Standard, Momentum = Second Order
Upwind, Turbulent Kinetic Energy = Second Order Upwind, Turbulent
Dissipation Rate = Second Order Upwind.
• Solution initialization: initialization methods- Hybrid Initialization.
• Run Calculation: number of iteration- 100, reporting interval- 1, profile
update interval- 1

BOUNDARY CONDITIONS
• Temperature of Inlet of coolant 80 C
• Temperature of air in surrounding 27 C
• Velocity of inlet of coolant 0.2m/s
• Velocity of air in surrounding 10m/s

INLET CONTOUR(TEMPERATURE) INLET CONTOUR(PRESSURE)

 RESULT

Water As Coolant :
OUTLET CONTOUR(PRESSURE) OUTLET CONTOUR(TEMPERATURE)
 CONCLUSION

1) The main comparison shows that water will perform better as the coolant than
commercial Ethylene glycol.

2) Less rise of temperature will occur in water than in Ethylene Glycol at same
Higher external temperature.

3) It can also be derived from the same that another commercial coolant i.e.,
Propylene Glycol will also be less efficient than Water.

4) The Effectiveness of water is higher than Ethylene glycol.

5)
WATER
 REFERENCES

• [1] Kharat Rahul., Bhardwaj Nitin., Jha R.S., Development of heat transfer
coefficient correlation for concentric helical coil heat exchanger, International
Journal of Thermal Sciences, vol.-48 (2009) 2300–2308.
• [2] Numerical And Experimental Studies of a Double pipe Helical Heat Exchanger
by Timothy John Rennie, Dept. of Bio-resource Engg. McGill University, Montreal
August 2004.
• [3] Experimental and CFD estimation of heat transfer in helically coiled heat
exchangers by J.S. Jayakumar, S.M. Mahajani, J.C. Mandal, P.K. Vijayan, and
Rohidas Bhoi, 2008, Chemical Engg Research and Design 221-232.
• [4] Ferng, Numerically investigated effects of different Dean Number and pitch
size on flow and heat transfer characteristics in a helically coil-tube heat exchange.