Exhaust System Muffler Volume Optimization of Light Commercial Vehicle Using CFD Simulation

Nowadays, the automotive industry is focused on weight reduction. Main advantage of this weight reduction is improving the fuel economy. Specific fuel consumption can be improved if we focus on vehicle with light weighting. Light weighting can be done by changing material or by changing the size (dimensions) of components. In the present work we have focused on weight reduction of existing exhaust system by optimizing muffler volume with the help of 3D design tool CATIA V5 and computational fluid dynamics commercial tool ANSYS CFX. Back pressure, noise level, sound quality and exhaust gas temperature are the key important parameters for design verification. Result of this present study, existing muffler volume has been reduced by 15 % and weight reduced by 2 %. Existing muffler has been analyzed and then compared with vehicle level test observation data. Noise level and pressure drop have been optimized for new muffler design. Flow properties have been analyzed by using CFD for the new optimized design. Based on optimization, prototype has been built and physical test has been conducted in vehicle level. The physical test results have been validated against CFD results. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and/or Peer-review under responsibility of International Conference on Emerging Trends in Materials and Manufacturing Engineering (IMME17).