Numerical study of enhancing vehicle radiator performance using different porous fin configurations and materials

A vehicle radiator is used for cooling down the hot working fluid with airflow passing over its flow passages and fins. The proper design of the radiator is very important due to space and weight limitations in automobiles. In this study, a numerical investigation has been conducted on the improvements, which can be obtained by implementing different porous fins in the radiator channels. The effects of different porous fin configurations with the same porous media volume on the heat transfer rate and pressure drop were investigated. The coefficient of performance values were presented for evaluating the overall performance. The investigated geometries included horizontal, vertical, corrugated, and wavy-corrugated configurations. The results showed that the corrugated pattern had the best thermal performance among these geometries while the horizontal configuration presented the lowest pressure loss, even though the best overall performance belonged to wavy-corrugated configuration. After selecting this configuration, the influence of different porous materials on the radiator performance was studied. Finally, the radiator with the optimum porous media configuration and material was compared to a conventional radiator. It was found that implementing this porous media in the radiator channels improves its overall thermal performance factor up to 237%.