Thermal Management for the 21st Century

The goal of this project is to develop and demonstrate an advanced, revolutionary thermal management system for use on military and commercial vehicles. This system will be efficient, modular, scalable and adaptable so that the current and future needs ofthe military can be met. If successful, this will offer a unique approach to thermal management, which could improve fuel economy, reliability, serviceability and emissions.Today's coolant system consists mainly of a mechanically driven pump, mechanically driven fan, melting wax thermostat, and an aluminum fined radiator with ethylene glycol coolant. These technologies have remained virtually unchanged for over 75 years, yetmodern day engines have advanced significantly in almost all other areas. Over 30% of all energy generated by the engine is dissipated in this antiquated thermal system. Properly implemented, fuel savings of up to 10% could be achieved by operating athermally optimal engine and decreasing parasitic losses. Additional benefits could include improvements in packaging and flexibility, which could decrease inventories, improve serviceability and allow for task specific control. This will be extremelyimportant as the military moves to a more lighter, more fuel efficient, mobile force.Phase I was used to evaluate candidate technologies and develop concepts for this advanced thermal management system. It also involved analysis and math models to determine an optimal system and estimate the potential benefits. Phase II will include thesystem development and a proof-of-concept demonstrator vehicle. This will be used to perform head-to-head comparisons between a conventional and an advanced thermal management system.Properly implemented, this advanced thermal magement system will offer fuel savings of up to 10%. Along with this could be improvements in packaging and flexibility, which could decrease inventories, improve serveability and allow for task specificcontrol. The goal of this project is to define, develop and demonstrate an advanced thermal management system for use on both military and commercial vehicles. This sytem will be modular, scalable and adaptable so that is could be used on many vehiclesincluding military vehicles such as the M113,LAVlll, FMTV, heavy truck along with on and off-highway commercial vehicles.