Thermal systems Integration For Fuel Economy

The major project works concerned:

• Dual loop air conditioning: one loop to transfer the cooling power and one loop to reject the heat;
• Two-levels temperature heat rejection system: one temperature to reject the high temperature heat (e.g. engine waste heat) and one temperature to cool locally the vehicle auxiliary systems;
• Innovative heat exchangers: new generation of compact fluid-to fluid heat exchangers and application of innovative technologies for fluid-to-air heat rejection;
• Use of innovative coolants (e.g. Nanofluids). To improve the heat rejection and redesign the heat exchangers TIFFE benefits can be summarised in a Cost Reduction (due to resize of the systems and their integration) and Fuel Economy increase of 15% on real use thanks to the:
  • improvement of the aerodynamics due the new front end design - increase of auxiliary systems efficiency thanks to the local cooling;
  • engine overall efficiency thanks to a fine control of heat exchange, local cooling (turbocharge, fuel, etc) and improvement of the engine intake;
  • the reduction of engine re-starts on Hybrid or Stop and Start vehicle due to cabin thermal comfort: the dual loop air conditioning with a designed thermal inertia guarantees thermal comfort when the thermal engine is off;
  • compact Refrigeration Unit compliant with Low GWP refrigerants R744 or flammables (e.g. R152a, R1234yf). Two prototypes will be realised and validated:
  1. a gasoline passenger car with Stop and Start function;
  2. a diesel Light Commercial Vehicle with hybrid power train Both will undergo to a complete series of road and climatic chamber tests and a long range road test. For example from Catania (I) to Cape North (N) to verify the reliability and effectiveness of the system and to promote its exploitation.