Simulation of the Effect of Altitude and Rotational Speed on Transient Temperatures of Rotating Components 05-12-01-0003

During vehicle development process, it is required to estimate potential thermal risk to vehicle components. Several authors have addressed this topic in earlier studies [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. For evaluation of potential thermal issues, it is desired to estimate the component temperature profile for a given duty cycle. Therefore, the temperature and exposure time at each temperature have to be estimated for each vehicle duty cycle. The duty cycle represents the customer usage of the vehicle for a variety of vehicle speeds and loadings. In this article, we focus on thermal simulation of rotating components such as prop shaft, drive shaft, and half shaft boots. Though these components temperatures can be measured in drive cell or road trips, the instrumentation is usually a complicated task. Most existing temperature sensors do not satisfy the needs because they either require physical contact or cannot withstand high-temperature environment in the vehicle underhood or underbody. In this article, a numerical transient thermal analysis for a rotating shaft in the presence of a radiation heat source is presented.

In addition to simulating the effect of rotational speed on the heat received by radiation and convection, we are investigating the effect of altitude on components temperature. To investigate the effect of altitude on components temperatures, during vehicle level testing, requires a variable altitude test chamber, which may not be available and is usually too costly. Therefore, numerical simulation of component temperatures under these conditions proves to be very useful and effective for early prediction of potential thermal issues.