Influence of Rotating Wheels and Moving Ground Use on the Unsteady Wake of a Small-Scale Road Vehicle

Abstract

New insights into how different ground simulation methods affect road vehicle aerodynamics are presented. Experiments are conducted on a 1/24th-scale model, representative of a Heavy Goods Vehicle, at a Reynolds number, based on width of 2.3 × 105. Particular focus lay in characterising differences in unsteady wake development, with mean drag, base pressures, and wake velocities quantified, compared, and evaluated. Distinctly, these tests include the effects of elevated blockage ratio and wheel rotation. Results show moving ground use can have a substantial influence under these conditions, with increases in wake length and average base pressure coefficient of 17% and 9%, respectively. The dominant wake dynamics, characterised by a global streamwise oscillation commonly referenced as the bubble pumping mode, was also found dependent with asymmetric shedding frequencies from both vertical and horizontal base edges higher with static ground use. For these conditions, development of a low-frequency turbulence source, near omni-directional in nature, positioned behind the model, further contaminates the flow-field. This feature disappears with moving ground use. Both the nature and characteristics of the turbulence generated behind the wheels were also found to evolve differently, with a moving ground promoting stronger and more defined oscillatory behaviour up to model mid-height, two-and-a-half widths downstream. Overall, these results highlight that while variations in time-independent quantities to differing ground simulation can often be very subtle, prompting the interpretation of negligible overall effects, in-depth consideration from a time-dependent perspective may lead to a different conclusion.