Patent Application
20140116658
The present disclosure relates to a vehicle cooling system having a plurality of heat exchangers and a fan.
Conventional vehicle cooling systems include a single stack of coolers. When cooling air blows through such a cooling system on a vehicle, a larger pressure drop for the cooling air across the stack of coolers reduces the ability to flow air through the system. This increases the power required to gain sufficient airflow to cool the vehicle. Coolers that are downstream in the stack receive cooling air that has already been heated by the coolers in front of them. This decreases the efficiency of the rear coolers. The air velocity must also be high on a single stack of coolers which can lead to debris buildup on coolers or the front grill screen if the machine is operating in a dirty environment.
Vehicle cooling arrangements with multiple cooling units arranged around a chamber or volume are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 7,128,178 issued in 2006, U.S. Pat. No. 6,401,801 issued in 2002, U.S. Pat. No. 8,167,067 issued in 2012 and U.S. Pat. No. 7,204,329 issued in 2007 and assigned to the assignee of this application. However, none of these cooling arrangements includes a cooler located at the bottom of a volume defined by the cooling units.
According to an aspect of the present disclosure, a multi-faced assembly of cooling units locates the different coolers in an C shaped array around a single cooling fan. A charge air cooler is oriented substantially horizontally and is positioned at the top of the assembly. A hydraulic oil cooler is oriented substantially horizontally and is positioned at the bottom of the assembly. A radiator, condenser and fuel coolers are oriented substantially vertically and are positioned at the front of the assembly. A single cooling fan is located at the rear and pulls air through all the coolers.
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The radiator frame 28 supports and partially encloses a first or front cooler or heat exchanger 60, preferably a conventional vertically oriented radiator. The upper cooler frame 36 supports and partially encloses a second or top cooler or heat exchange unit 62, preferably a charge air cooler. The bottom cooler frame 38 supports and partially encloses a third or bottom cooler or heat exchange unit 64, preferably an hydraulic oil cooler. Viewed from the left side, this assembly of heat exchangers forms a C-shaped array which partially surrounds a volume. Fan 22 is positioned at the rear end of this volume and fan 22 thereby draws air though radiator 60, charge air cooler 62 and hydraulic oil cooler 64.
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With this design, the different coolers are distributed among multiple different stacks of coolers, thus increasing the effective air flow cross sectional area of the system. The increased air flow cross sectional area creates a lower pressure drop across the entire system. The lower pressure drop allows the system to flow more total cooling air through it. Each cooler stack receives lower temperature air than if there was a single stack of coolers. This also increases the efficiency of the coolers. Lowering the velocity of the air into each cooler stack also benefits the system by lowering the exposure to debris buildup on the coolers or on the outer hood screen.
This cooling system design maintains forward visibility while increasing vehicle power and heat rejection capability. Further, cleaning and assembly of the cooling package is improved over current state of the art cooling packages. This system also lowers the noise produced by the cooling system fan.
While the disclosure has been illustrated and described in detail in the drawings and foregoing description, such illustration and description is to be considered as exemplary and not restrictive in character, it being understood that illustrative embodiments have been shown and described and that all changes and modifications that come within the spirit of the disclosure are desired to be protected. For example, fixed or controllable air baffles could added to direct airflow distribution to various heat exchangers, and additional secondary fans could be added to boost airflow in desired locations. It will be noted that alternative embodiments of the present disclosure may not include all of the features described yet still benefit from at least some of the advantages of such features. Those of ordinary skill in the art may readily devise their own implementations that incorporate one or more of the features of the present disclosure and fall within the spirit and scope of the present invention as defined by the appended claims.
