Hey Guys,

Its been a while (a long while!) since I last posted on here but I need some help and have always had some great reponse from here so thought I would ask the collective!

Im currently in my Final Year at uni and my final year project involves investigating ways of guiding air flow through horizontally mounted radiators. I am working with a company who are interested in optimising their current set up so I need to come up with new ideas of deflecting the air through the radiator. The new ideas will then be tested using CFD to look at any gains or losses of the new designs and to look at the effectiveness of the current set up.

Does anyone know of any vehicles (road or race) or pictures they could help me with to get the design ideas started. Im looking for anything with any type of radiator which isnt mounted perpendicular to air flow and the methods used to get air through the core.

Thanks All,

Mikkel

My house mate (at the time) did his final year project on air flow through an aerial atom rad (near enough horizontal from memory). Don't know if this helps at all but I remember Aerial being quite 'engaged'.

Greg

Lotus Elise springs to mind.

Obviously not radiators but theres a few turbo cars with their intercoolers sat horizontal ontop of the engine with the aid of a scoop to feed air to them such as:

Subarus, and I think the Nissan Sunny GtiR, Celica GT4, Mazda 3 MPS for example so they must be able to get them to work although one of the first upgrades on any of these cars is a front mounted intercooler!

I'd consider any mid engined car that has their radiators mounted with the engine rather than at the front of the car? A fair number of Lamborghini's and Ferrari's have various methods to get air into the car.

And there is also the Bugatti Veyron, if I remember rightly there are 10 radiators for various purposes in that car. They must have come up with some creative positioning just to make sure that they all get their share of airflow?

2 immediately come to mind, but I don't think either exist any more! One was a car from the 90s called the Imola, probably only 1 ever made, but it had a horizontal rad at the front. I have a feeling that the guy who was making it was poached by lotus tho! The other was the Edge Devil, which had side radiators almost parallel to the airflow. There should be some pics of that on google!

ETA have a picture of the rad on my iMac, will try to post it up tomorrow if it helps

[Edited on 22/1/13 by JC]

The first thing to do on a project like this is to nail down any limitations – min/max cooling required, maximum size for the whole thing, max weight, ruggedness, maintainability requirements, operating envoronment, what other facilities are available (like a supply of compressed air, electrical supply…..) and cost restrictions!
Is the 'optimisation' target minimum drag, or maximum cooling, or X amount of cooling for Y amount drag? Is there a profile for the amount of cooling required at different speeds?
There are various options depending on the answers above.
If you have a supply of high pressure gas you can use the coanda effect to get high air flow at low pressure – have a search for air amplifiers (the dyson bladeless fan uses the effect) (If he engine is turbocharged you could take some off from there, maybe).I don't know if you could use some 'ram air' effect.
You can use the venturi effect of air flow over the body of a car to create suction, but of course you have to be moving, otherwise you just get convection.
Regards
Hugh

Hi

The late 70's to mid 80's GP cars - that ran with full venturi tunnels - quite often ended up with virtually horizontal rads fed by NACA ducts.
Probably the best place to have a good look is only just up the road from you - Donnington Collection - though even if they're not quite what you're loking for it's a good excuse for a trip to 'find out'!

i have a vx220 which the rad is mounted flat in the front the same setup as the elise and exige

let me know if i can help

Thanks alot for all the input so far guys.

A lot for me to look at.

Hugh:

What I am looking to do really is maintain the same cooling performance across the rad but reduce the cost of the system. So where currently there is a couple of parts, I'd be looking to reduce this to just one part which will do the same.

But I am also looking at options of increasing the cooling performance as well. The project as it is, is still quite open ended and will depend on the intial results from the CFD.

you need to think back to why are car rad is the overall shape it is. i would guess its due to restriction of space and guarantee of high air flow.

there are basically two things here that can be optimized. the air flow and the rad design.

if you cant or dont want to manipulate air flow then design a rad that expects air in from that direction.

imagine a normal car rad, now lay it backwards to horizontal. now change the fin orientation to expect air through the bottom of the rad.

with diffusal of hot air out and induction of new in part way down this could end up being very efficient. end expected design could be a house rad laid flat.