Vehicle cooling structure
AssigneeToyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorsToshio Watanabe, Keisuke Shibata, Kenta Miyahara
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A battery provided in a vehicle and configured to supply electric power is cooled down by coolant the heat of which is exchanged with the heat of external air by a radiator. The radiator is provided near the battery and performs heat-exchange between the coolant and the external air taken in through introduction holes provided on a bottom face of the vehicle. Thus, even in a case where the radiator is provided in a vehicle floor portion so that the battery is upsized, it is possible to restrain a coolant pipe from being elongated. This accordingly makes it possible to improve mountability to the vehicle.
Claims15
A vehicle cooling structure, comprising:
- a power supply portion provided in a vehicle and configured to supply electric power;
- a heat exchanger provided near the power supply portion and including a heat-exchanging portion formed into a wall shape, the heat-exchanging portion being configured to perform heat-exchange between coolant for cooling down the power supply portion and external air taken in through introduction holes provided on a bottom face of the vehicle;
- shutter fins configured to open and close the introduction holes;
- a controlling portion configured to control the opening and closing of the shutter fins;
- and
- an actuator configured to operate the shutter fins to a closed state or to an opened state,
- wherein
- the power supply portion is configured to supply the electric power to an electric machine provided in the vehicle and configured to drive the vehicle,
- the heat exchanger is configured to perform the heat-exchange between the external air and the coolant that cools down the electric machine as well as the power supply portion,
- the controlling portion is configured to detect a traveling direction of the vehicle and control the opening and closing of the shutter fins to cause the external air to be introduced into the introduction holes in the traveling direction,
- the controlling portion is configured to, in response to at least one of a temperature of the power supply portion or a temperature of the electric machine being a predetermined temperature or more, control the actuator to operate the shutter fins to the opened state, and
- in a case where the vehicle travels forward in a vehicle front-rear direction, the controlling portion is configured to control the actuator to operate the shutter fins, except for shutter fins placed rearward of the heat exchanger in the vehicle front-rear direction, to the opened state where the shutter fins in the opened state are inclined upward in a vehicle up-down direction toward a rear side in the vehicle front-rear direction.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.