Evaluation of steady and transient CFD methods for vehicle temperature prediction on the basis of a heatshield test rig

摘要

To examine potential accuracy of CFD-based methods for calculating vehicle surface temperatures, a detailed correlation study has been made of a heatshield test rig. The test rig is geometrically simple, but the heat transfer is complex, representing all of the mechanisms found in a vehicle, and the CFD method must include both radiation and lateral conduction in order to be successful. Various Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) approaches have been used, on a variety of mesh types. A Detached Eddy Simulation (DES) was also run to understand the flow which is in reality unsteady. Quite good prediction accuracy is possible using RANS, but choice of turbulence modeling and mesh resolution is critical to success, and we describe this and the resulting temperature predictions in detail.