The gas flow and heat transfer inside an EGR cooler for a diesel engine are numerically analyzed to investigate the performance of EGR cooler. The commercial code FLUENT is utilized to simulate a single spiral tube with constant wall temperature condition. The numerical analysis is performed with the variation of exhaust gas flow rates according to engine speed. The computational results agree well with the experimental results published before. The results show that the maximum error rate is about 0.6% for all operating conditions. Thus a single tube model with constant wall temperature condition is appropriate for simulating EGR cooler.

In this study, the performance characteristics of EGR Cooler applying to the current commercial vehicle was analyzed by the numerical analysis. Through the experiment the performance evaluation of EGR Cooler must need a lot of time and expenses. On the other hand, the numerical analysis has been used in many research areas as a way to reduce the cost and time. The analysis model of this study has a spiral shape tube. The exhaust gas passes through the inside of the tube. The performance of Cooler was analyzed according to the variation of gas mass flow rate. The results of analysis and experimental was confirmed that was indicating the same trend.