Aerodynamic Analysis of the Utility Truck With the Morphing Boom Equipment

Abstract

Abstract Global climate change has affected the human race for decades. As a result, severe weather changes and more substantial hurricane impact have become a typical scenario. Utility trucks with the morphing boom equipment are the first responders to access these disaster areas in bad weather conditions and restore the damages caused by the disaster. The stability of the utility trucks while driving in a heavy wind scenario is an essential aspect for the safety of the rescue crew, and aerodynamic forces caused by the wind flow constitute a significant factor that influences the stability of the utility truck. In this paper, the aerodynamic performance of the utility truck is modeled using the incompressible unsteady Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes (URANS) model. The Ahmed body, a well-recognized benchmark test case used by the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) community for the aerodynamic model validation of automobiles, is used to validate this aerodynamic model. The validated aerodynamic model investigates the impact of heavy wind on the utility truck with the morphing boom equipment. The visualization of the flow field around the utility truck with the force and moment coefficients at various side slip angles are presented in this paper.