SAE TECHNICAL

PAPER SERIES

2003-01-0613

CFRM Concept at Vehicle Idle Conditions

Zhigang Yang, Jeffrey Bozeman and Fred Z. Shen
General Motors Corporation

James A. Acre
Delphi Corporation

Reprinted From: Thermal Management

(SP-1751)

2003 SAE World Congress

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March 3-6, 2003
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2003-01-0613

CFRM Concept at Vehicle Idle Conditions

Zhigang Yang, Jeffrey Bozeman and Fred Z. Shen
General Motors Corporation

James A. Acre
Delphi Corporation
Copyright 2003 SAE International

ABSTRACT
The concept of condenser, fan, and radiator
power train cooling module (CFRM) was further
evaluated via three-dimensional computational
fluid dynamics (CFD) studies in the present
paper for vehicle at idle conditions. The analysis
shows that the CFRM configuration was more
prone to the problem of front-end air recirculation as compared with the conventional
condenser, radiator, and fan power train cooling
module (CRFM). The enhanced front-end air recirculation leads to a higher air temperature
passing through the condenser. The higher air
temperature, left unimproved, could render the
vehicle air conditioning (AC) unit ineffective. The
analysis also shows that the front-end air recirculation can be reduced with an added sealing
between the CFRM package and the front of the
vehicle, making the CFRM package acceptable
at the vehicle idle conditions.
INTRODUCTION
Condenser, radiator, and fan are standard
equipment of vehicle HVAC sub-system for
vehicle underhood thermal management, power
train cooling, and air conditioning. These
components are typically packaged into a
condenser, radiator, and fan module (CRFM)
with the fan located at the rear of the package.
Pusher fan configuration, in which the fan is
placed at the front of the package, has also been
in service and is mainly being used as auxiliary
cooling fan to supplement the main fan located
at the rear of the package. A recent entry for the
configuration of packaging these components is
the center-mounted-fan (CMF) configuration

proposed by Delphi Corporation [1]. In this

packaging configuration, the fan is placed at the
center of the package and the subsystem
module is now a condenser, fan, and radiator
module (CFRM).
In a previous work [2] reported in the SAE 2002
World Congress, three-dimensional numerical
analysis was carried out with the aid of CFD
tools to assess the performance of the CFRM
concept in a vehicle level thermal system
analysis. It was found that at the fan speed of
2500 rpm, the CFRM configuration delivers an
air stream entering the vehicle underhood area
with an average temperature that is about 10C
cooler than the air stream temperature delivered
by its CRFM counterpart operating at the same
fan speed. The difference in temperature was
mainly due to the higher mass flow rate impelled
by the fan in the CFRM configuration. The mass
flow rate impelled by the CFRM fan can be
reduced with reduced fan speed. It was found
that at the fan speed of 2160 rpm, the mass flow
rate for the CFRM package is the same as the
mass flow rate of the CRFM package with the
fan operating at the speed of 2500 rpm. The
radiator exit temperatures were found to be
similar for these two cases, and the vehicle
underhood components experience similar
thermal environment. However, the fan in the
CFRM configuration was found to use 19% less
power, due mainly to the reduction in the fan
speed. Such a saving in fan power consumption
suggests that the CFRM configuration could be a
viable alternative to the CRFM configuration
currently in use today.
The above performance comparison between
the CFRM configuration and the CRFM

configuration was for a passenger sedan driving

at an extreme condition with the vehicle climbing
a grade road while pulling the maximum rated
trailer at the gross combined vehicle and trailer
mass rating. [This driving condition is referred to
as the trailer grade condition for the rest of the
paper.] Automobile vehicles operate in a wide
range of conditions, and it is thus necessary to
assess the performance of the CFRM package
at different operation conditions before the
packaging concept can be installed in a real
vehicle.
The objective of the present paper is to assess
the performance of the CFRM configuration at
vehicle idle conditions. Because of the lack of
the swirl velocity and thus the lower momentum
of the air stream exiting the CFRM package, its
performance at vehicle idle conditions was
suspected to be of concern, as discussed in [2].
The assessment was carried out using threedimensional CFD analysis in the present study.
The structure of the present paper is as follows:
First, framework and methodology of the present
assessment analysis are described. Next,
detailed numerical results of the CFRM
configuration and the CRFM configuration at
vehicle idle conditions are shown. Conclusions
and discussions are given in the final section of
the paper.
METHOD OF ANALYSIS
Our analysis in the present study was a vehicle
level thermal system analysis, in which the
thermal fields due to each of the vehicle
segments
(front
end,
underhood,
and
underbody) are calculated and analyzed together
as one thermal system. This is in contrast with
the traditional approach in which thermal
analysis for automobile is carried out by focusing
on a segment of the vehicle at a time, for
example,
underbody
thermal
analysis,
underhood thermal analysis, front end flow
analysis. The vehicle thermal system approach
is made feasible due to the development in
computational resources in terms of both
computer
hardware
and
computational
technologies. The vehicle thermal system
approach has the advantage over the segmentbased approach in that the difficulties and
ambiguities of setting up the conditions at the
inter-segment locations are removed.
In the vehicle thermal system analysis, the heat
exchangers (condenser and radiator) are still

modeled rather than being solved directly, due to

the difficulties in resolving the small scale
geometries related to the heat exchanger fins
and the airflow passing through them. In this
modeling approach, rather than simulating the
heat exchangers explicitly, only the effects of the
heat exchangers on the airflow field are
considered and modeled.
The heat exchangers have an effect on both the
velocity field and the thermal field of the airflow
passing through the heat exchangers. For the
velocity field of the airflow, the heat exchangers
are represented as porous media, which yields a
drag force to the airflow passing through them.
The effect of this drag force is that the airflow
loses pressure when passing through the heat
exchangers. For a given heat exchanger, the
magnitude of the pressure loss is a function of
the velocity of the airflow going through it. For
the thermal field of the airflow, the heat
exchangers are represented by volume heat
sources injecting heat to the incoming airflow
passing through the heat exchangers. The
amount of heat injected into the airflow, for a
given construction of the heat exchanger, is
related to the mass flow rate of the airflow, the
mass flow rate of the coolant passing the heat
exchanger, and the temperatures of the airflow
and the coolant. Both the pressure loss and the
thermal performance characteristics of a given
heat exchanger can be determined in a
component level test, or are provided by the heat
exchanger manufacturers.
Heat exchangers are modeled in this way in both
the previous study [2] and the present study. The
commercial CFD software Star-CD [3] was used
in the previous study. Details of modeling the
heat exchangers and implementing the model in
Star-CD are given in references [4-5]. In the
present study, the commercial CFD software
Fluent [6] was used to study the performance of
the CFRM concept at vehicle idle conditions. In
the Fluent code, the implementation of the heat
exchanger model is achieved via a user-defined
function (UDF), which was provided to us by
Fluent Inc. [7]. It should be pointed out that the
heat exchanger models implemented in the StarCD code and the Fluent code have the same
level of sophistication, and should not produce
any noticeable differences for the same physical
problem.
While the heat exchangers were modeled in a
similar manner in the previous study and in the

present analysis, fan treatment was completely

different. In the previous study, the fan was
modeled using the momentum source method.
In this modeling approach, similar to the
modeling of heat exchangers, only the effect of
the fan on the airflow is considered and
modeled. The modeling is achieved by adding
source terms in the momentum equations such
that the solution of the governing equations will
reproduce the fans pressure rise vs. flow rate
relationship, which is normally called fan
performance curve. The fan performance curve
can be obtained from the fan performance test
or is made available by the fan manufacturers.
Details of modeling the fan using the momentum
source method can be found in reference [8], for
example. In the present analysis, however, the
flow field due to the fan blade rotation was
simulated directly using the multiple reference
frame (MRF) methodology. In the MRF
approach, the fluid domain is divided into a few
sub-domains, with the fluid enclosing the fan
solved in a reference frame that is rotating with
the fan and the bulk of fluid solved in the
laboratory reference frame. Numerical solutions
for these sub-domains are matched at the
interface of the sub-domains during the solution
process. The MRF approach for fan simulation is
available in both the Star-CD code and the
Fluent code.
Of the two approaches, the momentum source
approach has the advantage of being
numerically more stable and faster in analysis
time since the fan blade geometry does not need
to be resolved. The MRF approach has the
advantage of being able to generate more
information, including the flow field over the fan
blades, the fan performance characteristics, fan
efficiency, and load distribution over the fan
blade. In our previous study, one uncertainty
associated with the use of the momentum
source approach was whether it was valid to use
the same set of fan performance curves in our
assessment of the performance comparisons
between the CRFM configuration and the CFRM
configuration. One of the motivations of adopting
the MRF approach for fan in our present analysis
was to remove this uncertainty.
The models for the CFRM configuration and the
CRFM configuration were then formed by putting
together the models for each component, i.e.,
condenser, radiator, and fan with fan shroud, in
different orders, as shown in figures 1 and 2,
respectively. Identical components were used in

these two configurations and the performance

characteristics for condenser and radiator were
assumed the same for both the CFRM and the
CRFM configurations. The condenser location
remains the same for both packaging
configurations. Also fixed is the total size of the
package, measured in the direction from the
front to the rear of the vehicle. In addition, the
CFRM package and the CRFM package are
perfectly sealed on the side of their packages.

Figure 1: CRFM configuration

Figure 2: CFRM configuration

The resulting model for the CFRM package or
the CRFM package was then mounted to a
vehicle model representing a typical family
sedan. In our vehicle level thermal system
analysis, other major underhood, underbody,
and exterior components of the vehicle were
included in the vehicle model, and the flow and
thermal fields about these components were
directly calculated. An effort was made to include
all the components that have a dimension of
75mm or larger. Altogether, more than 100
components were included in the final vehicle
model. The model structure is quite flexible in
that any other component can be easily added, if
it is deemed thermally important. The resulting
vehicle model was then placed in a
computational domain consisting of a box of
23m in length, 10m in width, and 5.5m in height,
the same size as the test section of the General
Motors Aerodynamics Laboratory [9]. This is the

typical computational domain for our vehicle

thermal system analysis. For the present study
on the thermal performance at vehicle idle
conditions, a much smaller computational
domain could have been used.
In the present numerical analysis, the vehicle
component surfaces were discretized with
triangle meshes.
The size of the triangle
meshes varies with the component in question.
A typical mesh on component of interest has a
dimension of 10-15mm. Altogether, more than
200,000 surface elements were used. Tetra
mesh was used to discretize the fluid in the
computational domain. Such a triangle/tetra
mesh structure for surface/volume discretization
allows fast and easy representation of the
complex geometry often found in an automobile.
The number of the volume meshes is strongly
dependent on the size of the surface elements
and the size of the computational domain. In the
present study, more than 2 million tetra cells
were used for the fluid volume. These tetra cells
were generated using TGrid [10].
The spatial location of the computational domain
and the vehicle are characterized by their
coordinates in a coordinate system with x in the
direction from the front to the rear of the vehicle,
z in the direction normal to the ground, and y in
the direction that makes the coordinate system
right-handed. The origin of the coordinate
system is locates such that the front wheels
have the x-coordinate of zero. This is also the
location of the balance at GMAL.
Due to the heat rejection from the condenser
and the radiator, the temperature of the airflow
increases, and the density of the airflow
decreases. The density variation leads to a
coupling between the velocity field and the
thermal field. In the present study, the coupling is
facilitated by the use of the following equation of
state,

= pa/RT,

(1)

where pa is the ambient atmospheric pressure.

Such an equation of state is necessary in order
to describe the fundamental physics causing the
performance differences between the CFRM
configuration and the CRFM configuration in a
vehicle level thermal analysis. A detailed
analysis of and a description for such a necessity
is given in Yang et al. [11].

In the present analysis, the turbulent flow field

was modeled using the realizable k- model of
Shih et al. [12]. The convective heat transfer due
to turbulent fluid motion was modeled with the
Reynolds Analogue and the assumption of a
constant turbulent Prandtl number. At the solid
wall surfaces, the wall-functions approach of
Launder and Spalding [13] was used to
represent the turbulent wall boundary conditions.
In a typical vehicle level thermal system analysis
such as the one in the previous study [2], all
three mechanisms of heat transfer, conduction,
convection, and radiation, are included. In
addition, conjugate heat transfer is assumed to
take place so that the temperature distribution on
a component of interest can be accurately found.
In the present study, a simplified formulation for
the heat transfer and the thermal field was
adopted in which the radiation heat transfer was
neglected and the thermal boundary condition at
any solid wall surface was assumed adiabatic.
Such a simplified approach was possible
because in the present study we were only
interested in the air temperature, particularly the
air temperature at the condenser inlet, rather
than the temperature on the surface of any solid
component. Since the radiation heat transfer
takes place between solid surfaces, our neglect
of this heat transfer mechanism and the
assumption of the adiabatic wall conditions
would only lead to inaccurate prediction of the
temperature distribution on the solid surfaces of
the components. Because the turbulent Prandtl
number is close to one (0.9 for air), the thermal
boundary layer and the momentum boundary
layer have comparable thickness (the ratio
between the two boundary layers is Pr, where
Pr is the turbulent Prandtl number), and both
become vanishingly small as the Reynolds
number becomes large. For the flow filed at the
vehicle idle conditions, the Reynolds number is
large mainly due to the small viscosity of air.
Thus, any inaccuracy of the temperature on
component solid surfaces will affect only the fluid
next to the surface, and have a negligible effect
on the temperature of the bulk of fluid due to the
low thermal conductivity of air. Thus, our
simplifications for the heat transfer and the
thermal boundary conditions at solid wall
surfaces are justified.
The commercial CFD code Fluent was used for
the current analysis, as mentioned earlier. The
code is a finite volume based code using
unstructured grid system. It supports the triangle
and tetra grid structure for the surface mesh and

the volume mesh as used in our discretization.

Computations using the Fluent code were
carried on GMs HPC (High Performance
Computing) platform. For the present framework
of analysis and the number of cells mentioned
above, the numerical computation took about
nine (9) hours to finish using eight (8)
processors, making it possible to generate
useful results overnight and able to impact
design consideration the following day.
RESULTS OF THE ANALYSIS
Boundary conditions need to be specified at the
boundary of the computational domain to carry
out the numerical analysis. Theoretically, the
boundary conditions should be set such that the
pressure at the boundary of the computational
domain will be in balance with the ambient
pressure. However, such a setting of the
ambient pressure boundary condition is very
difficult to achieve in the numerical study, and
the resulting numerical analysis is less stable
numerically. Instead, in the present study, a
small wind is imposed on the ambient
environment, and the resulting setup for the
boundary conditions are then the inflow
condition, the outflow condition, and the inviscid
wall condition at the boundaries of the
computational domain, just like the setup for the
case of moving vehicle. Such a setup facilitates
the numerical convergence of our study. It is
observed that for a small ambient wind speed
the airflow rate going through the heat
exchangers and the flow field in the underhood
region are determined solely by the fan
operation. In addition, it can be argued that the
setup with a small ambient wind gives a more
representation of a vehicle at idle conditions,
since the actual vehicle operates in an
environment that always has some (small)
ambient wind.
In the numerical solution process, solution for
the flow only (cold flow at iso-thermal condition)
was solved first. After reaching numerical
convergence, the thermal field was then turned
on and both the equations for the flow field and
the energy equation were solved as a coupled
set of equations. First order upwind scheme was
used throughout our numerical study for its
numerical stability properties. Since we were
interested in the airflow temperature at the
condenser inlet and the temperature in the bulk
of the fluid domain in the underhood area rather
than the temperatures at and/or near the

component surfaces, the first order scheme was

deemed sufficient. The conclusion was later
confirmed by calculations using the second order
scheme.
For all the cases to be presented later, the
analysis was carried out by assuming that the
ambient air had a temperature of 40C, the heat
rejection rate for the condenser and for the
radiator was set to 10KW each, and each of the
two parallel fans operated at the fan speed of
2500 rpm. In each case, the objective was to
compare the performance of the CRFM
configuration and the performance of the CFRM
configuration, especially in terms of the overall
underhood thermal environment and the problem
of front-end air re-circulation.
CASE I: U = 1M/S
First, a small velocity of 1m/s was imposed at
the inlet of the computational domain. Both the
CRFM configuration and the CFRM configuration
were calculated. To illustrate the overall vehicle
underhood thermal environment, temperature
distributions on two perpendicular planes, the
first being the vehicle symmetry plane with y=0
and the second being parallel to the ground with
z=0.4m, were plotted. These temperature
distributions are shown in figures 3-4 for the
CRFM configuration and figures 5-6 for the
CFRM configuration, respectively. By comparing
these temperature distributions, it is seen that
the peak underhood air temperature is slightly
higher for the CRFM package. However, the
temperature for the bulk of the air near the
vehicle front dash area is higher for the CFRM
package. This is partly because the airflow
spreads more widely for the CRFM package due
to the swirl velocity of the fan.
Overall, the temperature distributions for the
CRFM package and the CFRM package are in
the similar temperature range. In addition, it is
noted that the peak air temperatures for both the
CRFM package and the CFRM package are a lot
lower than the corresponding peak air
temperatures at the trailer grade condition, as
reported in the previous study [2]. This is
because the fan draws more airflow per unit heat
rejection rate from the heat exchangers at the
vehicle idle conditions than at the trailer grade
conditions. Thus, from the point of view of the
underhood thermal environment, idle conditions
do not pose any challenge, at least for vehicles
with electrical fan(s).

Figure 3: Underhood temperature (C)

distribution for CRFM (on y=0 plane)

Figure 4: Underhood temperature (C)

distribution for CRFM (on z=0.4m plane)

Figure 5: Underhood temperature (C)

distribution for CFRM (on y=0 plane)

Figure 6: Underhood temperature (C)

distribution for CFRM (on z=0.4m plane)

At vehicle idle conditions, the critical issue from

the point of view of the HVAC performance is the
airflow temperature at the condenser inlet
location. This airflow temperature can be a lot
higher than the ambient air temperature due to
the phenomenon of front-end air re-circulation.
When front-end air re-circulation takes place,
rather than taking in fresh air from the ambient,
the fan draws the hot air exiting from the radiator
back into the heat exchangers again. As a result,
the air temperature at the condenser inlet can
become substantially higher than the ambient air
temperature. The airflow temperature at the
condenser inlet has a direct impact on the
performance of the vehicle AC system at vehicle
idle conditions. When the air temperature at the
condenser inlet is raised, the AC compressor
must operate at a higher pressure in order to
reject the required amount of heat. The higher
pressure needs more compressor work, and
thus less cooling capacity is available for the
vehicle cooling comfort. When the temperature
is too high, the required pressure can be too
high for the vehicle AC compressor, which can
lead to shutting down of the vehicle AC system.
The air temperature at the condenser inlet is
shown in figure 7 and figure 8 for the CRFM
package and the CFRM package, respectively.
There are some hot spots, suggesting the
existence of the front-end air re-circulation. The
average air temperature at the condenser inlet
for the CRFM package is 49.5C, and the
average temperature for the CFRM package is
49.9C. In both cases, the temperature
distribution is rather uniform and the average
condenser inlet temperature is less than 10C
higher than the ambient temperature. Overall,
the issue of front-end air re-circulation is not very
serious for this case.

Figure 7: Temperature (C) distribution at

condenser inlet (CRFM configuration)

Figure 8: Temperature (C) distribution at

condenser inlet (CFRM configuration)
CASE II: U = -1M/S
For the second case, the small ambient wind
was assumed to be blowing from the rear of the
vehicle. In actuality, a wind from the rear of the
vehicle can happen as much as the ambient
wind from the front of the vehicle. The key
question for us is if such a change in the
direction of the (small) ambient wind causes
much change in the thermal field of our interest.
The temperature distributions for the overall
underhood area are shown in figures 9 and 10
for the CRFM configuration and the CFRM
configuration, respectively. Compared with the
temperatures for the case of u=1m/s shown in
figure 3 and figure 5, the temperatures become
higher for both configurations with a more
pronounced temperature increase for the CFRM
package. It should be pointed out that the isothermal calculation would have yielded the same
cooling flow rate passing through the heat
exchangers as for the case of u=1m/s,
suggesting that the iso-thermal cooling flow rate
is NOT the only parameter determining the
vehicle underhood thermal environment. On the
other hand, it is still not as high as what one
finds in the trailer grade conditions.

Figure 9: Temperature (C) distribution for the

CRFM configuration for u=-1m/s (y=0 plane)

Figure 10: Temperature (C) distribution for the

CFRM configuration for u=-1m/s (y=0 plane)
The air temperature at the condenser inlet has
seen an even more dramatic change. These
temperatures are shown in figures 11 and 12 for
the CRFM configuration and the CFRM
configuration, respectively. Compared with the
case of wind blowing from the vehicle front given
in figures 7 and 8, the average air temperature at
the condenser inlet now goes up to 56.5C for
the CRFM package, and up to 58.7C for the
CFRM package. Such a high average air
temperature at the condenser inlet reduces the
capacity of the vehicle AC system due to the
higher compressor pressure that is required.

Figure 11: Temperature distribution at

condenser inlet for u=-1m/s (CRFM
configuration)

Figure 12: Temperature distribution at

condenser inlet for u=-1m/s (CFRM
configuration)

Since the ambient air has a temperature of

40C, the hot air spots at the condenser inlet
plane must be due to the front-end air recirculation. To see clearly, the velocity vector at
the y=0 plane and the z=0.4m plane are shown
in figure 13 and figure 14. For better visual
clarity, velocity vectors are projected in the plane
of choice and all velocity vectors are drawn with
the same length. The color on the velocity vector
indicates the temperature at the point where
velocity is drawn.

and 10 are higher. Figures 13 and 14 also show

that the air re-circulation has the main path of
going through the top and the sides of the CRFM
and CFRM packages. Such information can
help to make design modifications to reduce the
air re-circulation. This is the topic of the next
sub-section.
CASE III: U = -1M/S WITH SEALING
One remedy of reducing the front-end air recirculation is to block the air re-circulation path
shown in figures 13 and 14 by sealing the gaps
between the CRFM (and the CFRM) package
and the vehicle front. A seal was added, and the
computations were carried out again. The
resulting air temperatures at the condenser inlet
plane are shown in figure 15 for the CFRM
package.

Figure 13: Air re-circulation at the y=0 plane

Figure 15: Temperature distribution at

condenser inlet for u=-1m/s (CFRM
configuration with seal)

Figure 14: Air re-circulation at the z=0.4m plane

It is seen clearly that the hot air exiting from the
radiator is being drawn back and fed into the
heat exchanger again. As a result, the
temperature at the condenser inlet becomes
higher than the ambient air temperature. Such
an air re-circulation exists for both the CRFM
package and the CFRM package. Due to the
small swirl velocity for the CFRM package, the
impact is more severe and the resulting average
air temperature at the condenser inlet is higher.
The heat rejection from the heat exchangers
heats up the incoming airflow. For a fixed heat
rejection rate, the air temperature at the radiator
exit will be higher if the air temperature at the
condenser inlet is higher. This explains why the
underhood air temperatures shown in figures 9

It is seen from figure 15 that the air temperature

at the condenser inlet plane is much cooler now
as compared with the case without the seal,
which was shown in figure 12. The average air
temperature at the condenser inlet plane is
reduced from 58.7C to 48.5C. In addition, the
temperature distribution is more uniform. To
confirm that the reduction in average
temperature was achieved by the reduction in
vehicle front-end air re-circulation, velocity vector
at the y=0 plane is shown in figure 16, and the
color again indicates the temperature at the
location of the velocity vector. It is seen that the
air re-circulation from the top of the CFRM
package is blocked and only fresh air from the
ambient is drawn into the heat exchangers. As a
result of reduction in front-end air re-circulation,
the vehicle underhood thermal environment is
improved, as shown in figure 17 (and in
comparison with figure 10). It is noted that the
seal that reduces the front-end air re-circulation

is preferred for other reasons as well. For

example, the seal would help reducing the
vehicle aerodynamic drag and improve the
cooling flow rate at the vehicle trailer grade
conditions.

Figure 16: Air re-circulation at the y=0 plane for

CFRM package with seal

Figure 17: Temperature (C) distribution for the

CFRM configuration with seal for u=-1m/s
CONCLUSIONS
The performance of the CFRM packaging
concept at the vehicle idle conditions are
analyzed and assessed in the present study. For
vehicle with electrical fans, vehicle idle
conditions do not pose much challenge for
power train cooling, since the vehicle must
withstand more severe power train cooling
requirement at trailer grade conditions, as the
results of the previous study [2] had shown. On
the other hand, a unique thermal issue facing the
vehicle at idle conditions is the air temperature at
the condenser inlet. Because air has little
momentum due to the vehicle motion, hot air
exiting the radiator can be drawn back into the
heat exchanger, thus much increasing the
temperature at the condenser inlet.

The present study assesses the performances of

the CRFM package and the CFRM package in
terms of the problem of front-end air recirculation. Due to the low swirl velocity and thus
the lower momentum of the hot air leaving the
radiator, the CFRM package generates a higher
degree of air re-circulation when compared with
its CRFM counterpart. On the other hand,
sealing of the CFRM package with the vehicle
front can reduce the degree of air re-circulation,
and thus reduce the average air temperature at
the condenser inlet substantially. With an added
seal, the air temperature at condenser inlet was
brought down to acceptable level. The average
air temperatures at the condenser inlet plane for
the few cases calculated in the present study are
summarized in the following table.
Table I: Average condenser inlet air temperature
U=1m/s

U=-1m/s

U=-1m/s
(with
seal)

CRFM

49.5C

56.5C

48.0C

CFRM

49.9C

58.7C

48.5C

Test was also carried out at the vehicle idle

conditions. The following three types of systems
were tested: 1) Production CRFM package on a
vehicle; 2) Prototype CFRM on the same vehicle;
and 3) Prototype CFRM with an air discharge
deflector on the same vehicle. The average air
temperatures at the condenser inlet plane for
these three cases are given in table 2.
Table 2: Average condenser inlet air
temperature

Temp.

Production
CRFM

Prototype
CFRM

Prototype
CFRM
with
deflector

57.2C

60.6C

56.1C

Because of the variations in vehicle geometry

and vehicle operating conditions such as the
heat loads and the fan speed, direct
comparisons between the CFD simulation and

the test can not be made. On the other hand, it is

worth noting that both the simulation and the test
show the same general trend: the CFRM
package will provide a lower cooling
performance than the CRFM package with the
addition of seal (in the analysis) or the air
deflector (in the test). With the addition of the
seal (in analysis) or the air deflector (in test), the
performance of the CFRM package is improved
and is acceptable for vehicle at idle conditions.
The present study also demonstrates the
importance of carrying out calculations for
vehicle at idle conditions with the ambient
velocity of both u=1ms and u=-1m/s. In the case
shown, u=-1m/s is much more critical in terms of
the vehicle front-end air re-circulation, and thus
the vehicle AC performance. It can be argued
that for most vehicles, the case for u=-1m/s will
yield results that are more critical than those
obtained with u=1m/s if the air re-circulation is of
concern.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The surface mesh of the vehicle was provided by
K. Elankumaran. Z. Yang would like to thank
Mark Franchett, Che-Hsi Yu, and Vijay
Damodaran for interesting discussions. He
would also like to thank Greg Fadler, his
manager, for generous support during the writing
of this paper. The authors would like to thank the
SAE reviewers for their comments on this paper.
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Delphi Corp., ``Center mounted fan power train

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Yang, Z., Bozeman, J., Shen, F.Z., Turner, D.,

Vemuri, S., and Acre, J., `CFRM concept for
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CONTACT
For information regarding this paper, please
contact:
Zhigang Yang
General Motors Corporation

Phone: 586-578-3688
E-mail: Zhigang.Yang@gm.com
For information regarding center-mounted fan
(CMF), please contact:
James A. Acre
Delphi Corporation

Phone: 716-439-2932
E-mail: james.a.acre@delphiauto.com