Abstract:

The application of active grille shutter (AGS) technology was investigated to address the challenge of traditional fixed grilles in hybrid commercial vehicles failing to dynamically adapt to differentiated thermal management demands under dual-heat-source coupling conditions. The impact of AGS de-flection orientation and angle on the aerodynamic and thermal balance performance of a hybrid light truck was analyzed using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. And an optimized AGS control strategy was proposed to enhance heat dissipation efficiency while reducing aerodynamic drag, thereby balancing energy consumption and thermal regulation requirements in complex oper-ating scenarios. The results show that the full operating condition of AGS can significantly increase the air intake of the intercooler and radiator, improving the thermal balance performance. The lower deviation of the AGS blades can guide the airflow to the cooling components, and avoid complex chassis parts, resulting to enhance the heat transfer situation and reduce the drag coefficient by about 2.85%. Under the conditions of 50 km/h climbing and 110 km/h high-speed, setting 60° and 75° grille opening can meet the heat transfer needs of the hair cabin, but also reduce the wind resistance coefficient of about 3.21% and 3.88%, respectively. Therefore, it is an important technical means to improve the thermal balance performance and energy consumption state to carry out the AGS optimal matching design and to associate the AGS control strategy on the hybrid light truck model.

Key words: vehicle thermal management, hybrid commercial vehicles, active air intake grilles (AGS), wind resistance coefficient