Research on the Optimization of a Diesel Engine Intercooler Structure Based on Numerical Simulation

As a device for cooling charged air before it enters the cylinder, the intercooler is an indispensable part of the regular operation of a booster diesel engine. To solve the problem of the insufficient cooling performance of an intercooler for a high-power supercharged diesel engine, in this study, the flow field in the intercooler is simulated using the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of porous media, and the performance data measured using the steady flow test bench are used to provide boundary conditions for the calculation. The effects of the charged air mass flow rate and the tube bundle’s transverse spacing on the heat dissipation performance of the intercooler are analyzed and compared. The calculation results show that, under the condition of satisfying the regular operation of the diesel engine, the heat transfer coefficient of the intercooler heat dissipation belt increases with the increase in air mass flow and the spacing of cooling pipes, and the heat transfer coefficient can be increased by up to 57%. Still, excessive spacing of the cooling water pipes increases pressure loss in the charged air. Finally, the transverse spacing of the tube bundle is set to 17 mm, ensuring the pressure drop in the charged air, and the heat dissipation performance of the intercooler is increased by 6.04%. This paper provides a feasible solution for further optimizing the heat dissipation performance of intercoolers. Finally, grey correlation theory is used to study the correlation between air mass flow, cooling water pipe spacing, and intercooler heat dissipation performance. The correlation values are 0.8464 and 0.8497, respectively, indicating a significant relationship between air mass flow, cooling water pipe spacing, and intercooler heat dissipation performance.