Parametric Study for Evaluating Damageability of Automotive Radiator by Impacting Stones

The performance of automotive engines depends on the adequate heat rejection by radiator. The durability of radiator under all road conditions is an important consideration during the design and development stage, specifically protection of radiators from impacting road debris and stones. A parametric study was conducted to investigate the damageability of radiators by small stone impacts. In this paper, radiator design parameters are studied for damage protection caused by stone impacts. The strain in the radiator material caused by stone impacts has been used as the measure of damageability. The parameters considered for the study are the fin thickness, fin pitch, tube height, tube thickness, tube nose radius, tube depth, stone size and stone speed. The results show that strain is dependent on fin thickness, tube thickness, stone size and stone velocity. Also strain is insensitive to Tube nose radius, tube construction type, and tube depth.