Experimental and computational study on heat transfer of a 150 kW air-cooled eddy current dynamometer

The air-cooled eddy current dynamometer is widely used in the measurement of engine performance. However, the load capacity of this device will significantly decrease when operated continuously as a result of temperature rise. To resolve this issue, it needs a high rate air cooling system. Since the heat transfer mechanism is real complicated and has several parameters affecting the cooling rate, it is advantageous to examine the phenomena theoretically, before designing a dynamometer. The primary objective of this study was to validate the numerical simulation modeling against experimental measurement results. The study was conducted with an existing 150 kW eddy current dynamometer that operates at several rotating speeds. Numerical calculation was validated with experimental results by varying turbulence models and dynamometer load. The finite volume method, facilitated by ANSYS FLUENT® software, was used to solve the problem. It has been found that the Spalart-Allmaras model is in good agreement compared to the experimental results. Hence, it is concluded that the computational model might be used as the reference to calculate the effect of dynamometer geometry parameters, and other operational variables, for getting the optimum design of cooling part of the dynamometer.