Abstract
The AeroCity is a new form of transportation concept that has been developed to provide high-speed ground transportation at a much lower cost than the existing high-speed railway. Utilizing the Wing-in-Ground (WIG) effect, the AeroCity vehicle does not require complex infrastructures like other contemporary concepts, such as the Hyperloop or Maglev trains. In the current work, the aerodynamic characteristics of the AeroCity vehicle are examined through a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis. The results from the CFD analysis qualitatively match with the findings of wind tunnel experiments. Surface streamlines and boundary layer measurements correspond well with the numerical data. However, the force measurements show a discrepancy. It is found that the separation bubble over the side plates is not captured by the CFD, and this is responsible for an under-prediction of the drag at higher free-stream velocities. The Transition SST model improved the matching between the experiments and numerical simulations. The influence of the moving ground is numerically investigated, and the effect of non-moving ground on the vehicle aerodynamics was found not to be significant. Finally, the inclusion of the track wall is examined. It is found that the merging of the wingtip vortices is responsible for a significant drag increase and, therefore, an alternative track geometry should be investigated.
Highlights
Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, Delft University of Technology, 2629 HS Delft, The Netherlands; Citation: van Sluis, M.; Nasrollahi, S.; Abstract: The AeroCity is a new form of transportation concept that has been developed to provide high-speed ground transportation at a much lower cost than the existing high-speed railway
To summarize the current work, it can be concluded that the basic aerodynamic characteristics of the AeroCity model have been successfully investigated
The wind tunnel experiment explored the sensitivity of the aerodynamic performance indicators to the main design parameters
Summary
Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, Delft University of Technology, 2629 HS Delft, The Netherlands; Citation: van Sluis, M.; Nasrollahi, S.; Abstract: The AeroCity is a new form of transportation concept that has been developed to provide high-speed ground transportation at a much lower cost than the existing high-speed railway. The infrastructure cost per 100 km of high-speed track in Europe is estimated to be around EUR 3.4 billion [1]. Due to the high development cost, the expansion of the current high-speed rail network is difficult, since the available budgets from governments for large infrastructural projects are limited. With this in mind, the AeroCity concept was developed [2]. By utilizing the Wing-in-Ground (WIG) effect, AeroCity avoids the need for complex infrastructure, such as high-tolerance track or vacuum tubes, etc.
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