Font Size: 

The development of vehicles during the last decade is related to the evolution of electronic systems added in order to increase the safety and the number of services available on board, such as advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS). Cars already have a complex computer network, with electronic control units (ECUs) connected to each other and receiving information from many sensors. The ECUs transfer an important heat power to the environment, while proper operating conditions need to be provided to ensure their reliability at high and low temperature, vibration and humidity. In a car cabin, electronic devices are usually placed in the compartment under the dashboard, an enclosed space designed for functional purposes. In the early stages of the vehicle design it has become necessary to analyse the environment under dashboard, by the use of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations and measurements. This paper presents the cooling of heat sinks by natural convection, a thermal and fluid simulation of the environment under the dashboard compared with test data.

flow under dashboard; CFD simulation; thermal analysis; cooling with natural convection; measurement data