In the automotive manufacturing process, the paint drying process is very important to improve the appearance of the vehicle. In the present study, the fluid flow and heat transfer around a vehicle were numerically investigated for the purpose of predicting the drying performance of the paint drying process. In order to simulate the operating conditions of the paint drying process, the following techniques were used: relative moving boundary conditions, multiple reference frames, and conjugated heat transfer. The present numerical method was verified by comparing the numerical results of the temperature at several monitoring points on a vehicle, while using the experimental data. To evaluate the drying performance quantitatively, the absorbed heat energy that is closely related to the drying of paint was obtained from the numerical simulation. It was found that the drying performance is greatly affected by operating conditions such as the temperature and flow rate of blowing air. To improve the drying performance, the operating conditions of the paint drying process were optimized using the numerical results of various operating conditions.
New manganese-based catalyst systems for alkyd paint drying