• Journal of computational fluids engineering
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.65-76
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• 2015

In this study, the natural convection phenomenon of the air side and the forced convection phenomenon of the oil side were simulated in the radiator through a 3-D numerical analysis, and the total heat released by the oil side into the radiator heating plate and then to the air side was evaluated. Also, a quantitative analysis was carried out on the effect of each thermal resistance on the overall heat transfer coefficient through a 1-D thermal circuit analysis on the heat transfer mechanisms of the radiators considered in this study. In addition, for the diverse shapes of the heating plates considered in this study, the pressure drops of the oil side were quantitatively compared and evaluated. The temperatures at the air side and the oil side outlets of the radiators with 8 different fin shapes considered in this study had almost similar values showing a difference of +/-3% and, accordingly, the total heat transfer also showed similar heat dissipation performance in all the models. As a result of the 1-D thermal circuit analysis, in all the models considered in this study, while the thermal resistance of the air side accounted for 92% to 96% of the total, that of the oil side was 5 to 7%, and that of the heating plate showed a very small value of 0.02%.