Electric vehicles aim to carry the torch into a sustainable future. An optimized cooling system is crucial to an Electric Drive Unit (EDU). A smartly designed cooling system will deliver high-performance, efficient and long-lasting EDUs at lower costs. One way to achieve that is to have an integrated cooling system. When the electric motor and transmission share a common oil, the oil returning from the transmission side is aerated due to spraying and splashing. This aeration affects the pump performance and may reduce the cooling performance of the oil. Thus, this thesis is initiated to understand the impact of aeration on heat transfer. 

   Oil aeration is the presence of air in oil. This aeration depends on the air content and bubble sizes mixed in the oil. Typically, there is also some amount of dissolved air in any oil. Depending on the type of aeration, the oil will appear lighter than its usual colour and have a very foamy texture, showing a change in the properties of the fluid, for example density, viscosity and heat transfer.

   An experimental setup is built in order to replicate and study the effect of aeration on local heat transfer. A flat channel with rectangular cross-section is designed with three parts – a bottom plate, a flow spacer channel and a top transparent plate. The oil and air are mixed before they enter the channel and then heated using thin film heaters. A groove within the bottom plate houses an insulating material, the thin film heater, a thermocouple touching the heater and a thermochromic liquid crystal sheet facing the fluid mixture. The thermocouple gives temperature readings from a single point between the heater and the insulating material. Meanwhile, the liquid crystal sheets come in different desired temperature ranges and change in colour from red to blue to show the surface temperatures over an area. So, the surface temperature of the mixed fluid flow can be recorded visually over an area with the thin film heater under it to calculate the heat transfer coefficients accordingly.

   The drop in Nusselt number and heat transfer rates with increased aeration in the working fluid is the main highlight and result. The size of the air bubbles in the channel also determine how fast the heat transfer rate drops.