Design of Automotive Firewall Based on Thermal Analysis

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Abstract

The function of the automotive firewall is to insulate the heat and damp the vibrations occurring from the engine, and it also protects the passenger compartment by resisting the intrusion of the engine noise. The proposed work is to create a double-walled firewall made of glass fiber-reinforced polypropylene (GFRP) with sandwiched honeycomb structure than the pressed steel plate which conventionally used. GFRP found to have better thermal properties than the pressed steel plate, it has a high strength-to-weight ratio, corrosion and thermal resistance have less dense. The cavity between the two plates is filled with ‘honeycomb’ structure, and it has excellent sound and vibration damping characteristics because of the high-volume fraction of void space within each cell. The study shows that using GFRP was thermally more stable than the single-walled firewall, which made up of pressed steel. The density of the GFRP is lesser than that of pressed steel, and using GFRP reduces the weight of the firewall structure, which in turn improves the efficiency of the vehicle.