SIMULIA Resource Center

Many components in a vehicle can become so hot that they can potentially fail or degrade nearby components, leading to serious safety, durability, and warranty issues. Plastic components are being used increasingly to save on cost and weight, but are more sensitive to temperature. Globalization is leading to vehicles or vehicle platforms that must operate in extremely wide temperature ranges. Careful and detailed analysis of component placement and thermal shielding is required to avoid costly late-stage design fixes or, worse, failures when in production.

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Thermal Simulation of Avionics Compartments

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Vehicle electrification is one of today’s main engineering research and development challenges. Despite the technology still being in its infancy, hybrid and electric drive vehicles are here to stay and the battery system is one of the critical components. It must provide sufficient power to give usable daily range, last 10 years or more, be as small and lightweight as possible, yet be safe from fire or the release of hazardous materials. Maintaining the batteries within a strict operating temperature range is essential to meet vehicle range and battery lifetime requirements. Increasing globalization is leading to vehicles or vehicle platforms that must operate in extremely wide operational temperature ranges, which further amplifies the challenge.

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Noise pollution from vehicles, airplanes, trains, and heavy machinery is steadily increasing — with proven adverse health effects for people in nearby communities. Therefore, government regulations for community noise are getting more stringent in most countries. This creates significant challenges for vehicle and aircraft manufacturers forced to meet these ever increasing regulatory requirements.

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Noise from aircraft jet engines during take-off is the dominant source of community noise. Government regulations of community noise are getting more and more stringent in most countries, creating significant challenges for aircraft manufacturers forced to meet these ever-increasing regulatory requirements.

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One of the most noticeable physical phenomena in a vehicle is how quickly the windshield and side windows clear on a cold morning. A mist or ice layer is an obvious safety hazard and every country has regulations specifying the maximum time allowed for defrosting/demisting. It’s no wonder that defrosting and demisting are assessed by the J.D. Power and Associates’ initial quality survey. The speed of the defrosting and demisting depends on many factors, including the detailed design of the HVAC ducts and registers, air temperature, velocity, and turbulence. Optimizing the design of the HVAC system can be a difficult task.

Solution Briefs

Many components in a vehicle can become so hot that they can potentially fail or degrade other nearby components, leading to serious safety, durability, and warranty issues. Plastic components are being used increasingly to save on cost and weight, but are more sensitive to temperature. Globalization is leading to vehicles or vehicle platforms that must operate in extremely wide operational temperature ranges. Careful and detailed analysis of component placement and thermal shielding is required to avoid costly late-stage design fixes or, worse, failures when in production.

Solution Briefs

Reducing vehicle interior noise levels for driver and passenger comfort is a key concern for acoustic engineers, directly impacting consumer sales and brand loyalty. Because powertrain and road/tire noise have been greatly reduced, wind noise is now the dominant noise source during highway driving. Therefore, a significant amount of engineering time and product cost is being invested to achieve interior noise targets and remain competitive in quality.

Solution Briefs

The challenge faced by vehicle manufacturers in each design stage is the urgent need for information about how to improve the design. Aerodynamic information can be costly and difficult to obtain, traditionally involving building a detailed model or prototype of the vehicle and testing it in a wind tunnel. Design iterations at this late stage of product development are time-consuming and costly because it is difficult to make large-scale changes to a model, or to change any surface features of a fully detailed prototype during a wind tunnel test. Prototype testing for aerodynamics is a major contributor to vehicle development costs and design cycle time.

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Paying attention to underbody wind noise has become important because it can be a significant contributor to interior noise quality in the low-frequency range (

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Providing drivers and passengers with an adequate comfort level is a critical design objective. This is true across all modes of transport including automobiles, trucks, off-road vehicles, trains, and aircraft. HVAC climate control is a critical element in the highly influential and respected J.D. Power and Associates APEAL study.

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Governments have imposed operator and community noise regulations, and a failure in the acoustic development of a product can lead to delays and expensive countermeasures to meet those requirements. In addition, cooling fan noise acoustics is a perceived quality issue that can affect brand image and customer satisfaction. Given the regulations and growing importance of acoustic comfort in these competitive markets, there is high value in addressing cooling fan, flow-induced noise problems as early as possible during product development.

Solution Briefs