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Heat Exchanger Design
AI-powered simulation advances cooling system design
Dolphin Global Holdings is adopting Physics and Engineering AI and advanced simulation tools to accelerate the development of cooling systems for heavy-duty, locomotive and off-highway equipment. The technology is being used to optimise heat exchanger and radiator designs while addressing thermal performance, pressure drop, weight and operation in demanding environments.
By Iryna Mukha, Heat Exchanger World
Optimising thermal and fluid performance The move was announced during Dolphin’ s participation at InnoTrans 2026 in Berlin, where the company is showcasing its CFD-based design and product development capabilities. These include simulation-supported optimisation of radiator cores, fins, tubes and airflow. Heavy-duty and off-highway equipment places increasingly demanding thermal requirements on cooling systems. Conventional, sequential design approaches can make it difficult to evaluate the large number of variables involved, particularly when thermal performance must be balanced with pressure drop, weight, durability, packaging and manufacturability. Dolphin is using AI-powered simulation to explore a wider range of core, fin, tube and airflow configurations during the design process. The approach is intended to help engineers identify suitable configurations more quickly while improving heat transfer and reducing the power required for cooling. The company plans to expand its use of SimScale’ s Physics and Engineering AI and digital simulation tools across its Heavy-Duty, Locomotive Truck &
Bus, and Off-Highway & Industrial ranges in the coming months. Applications will include computational fluid dynamics( CFD) and thermal simulations for different heat exchanger configurations, including shell-and-tube and plate heat exchangers. The simulations will be used to assess and optimise thermal and fluid performance before physical prototypes are produced.
Earlier validation through digital engineering The adoption forms part of Dolphin’ s wider investment in digital engineering. By moving more testing and optimisation into the earlier stages of product development, the company aims to evaluate designs sooner and reduce the need for repeated physical prototyping.“ Our engineering team has always owned every stage of design and validation in-house,” said Nooruddin Jetpurwala, Founder, Chairman & CEO, Dolphin Global Holdings.“ Bringing SimScale’ s Physics and Engineering AI and advanced simulation capability into that process enhances our operational efficiency and time optimisation. We can now test more configurations, identify issues earlier, and bring validated designs to market faster, without compromising the standards our customers depend on.” According to David Heiny, Co-Founder and CEO of SimScale, AI and simulation can enable engineering teams to assess a greater number of design variants as thermal requirements become more complex.“ By adopting these tools, Dolphin is enabling its engineers to explore up to hundreds more design variants and move beyond conventional approaches and simple, incremental improvements,” Heiny said.
Example parts from the Dolphin Global Holdings catalog that will be simulated with SimScale.
44 Heat Exchanger World October 2026 www. heat-exchanger-world. com