Scooters are popular for the legroom available in the front and closed storage space beneath the seat. Engine is located at rear part of the vehicle beneath the storage space and is cooled by forcing the air by a centrifugal fan over the engine surface. Heat is rejected from the engine by the forced cooling and radiation to the surroundings. Storage space gets heated as result of excessive heat rejection from engine. To protect the material of storage space and the items stored in that, it is necessary to avoid heating of the storage space.
The work aims to conduct the storage space heating analysis in a scooter. The objective is to propose the design modifications to reduce the storage space heating. The effect of convection and radiation in heating of the storage space is studied. Three dimensional Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis, with a commercial code, is carried out to evaluate the heat transfer from the engine to the storage space, this gives a good scope in analyzing the effect of different parameters in avoiding the heating and aids in swift modifications in the design process. The air flow path over the vehicle and within the vehicle is considered for analysis. Conduction phenomenon of the storage space is studied to understand the inner surface temperatures. The design parameters were studied for reducing the heat transfer to the storage space.
Physical experimentation is done to validate the simulated result. The modifications made in the design features reduces the heating of the storage space. The temperature of the storage space inner surface is reduced by 20°c with the modified design. A numerical methodology has been devised to simulate the effect of engine radiation in heating the storage space in scooters.