Simulation and experimental study on the aerodynamic characteristics of a high-speed elevator with three-sided arc fairings

Abstract

To address the crucial issue of optimizing the design of fairings for drag and noise reduction, this study focuses on a high-speed elevator in operation as the research subject. The numerical and experimental analysis investigates the influence mechanism of a three-sided arc fairing on the surface pressure distribution, surrounding airflow velocity, and aerodynamic drag of elevator cars. The results indicate that the fairing is effective in reducing the high-pressure area on the top of the car. It also helps to prevent vibrations caused by early separation of the boundary layer and periodic vortex separation, and mitigates the impact of aerodynamic forces on the car when there is a sudden change in airflow direction. As the arc radius of the fairing increases, the airflow velocity between the car and the shaft decreases. This leads to a reduction in the tail vortex area at the bottom of the car, resulting in decreased aerodynamic drag. Among the four schemes, scheme D with the largest arc radius of the fairing demonstrates the best optimization performance. Compared to the case without fairing, the car surface pressure decreases by approximately 35%. The aerodynamic drag is reduced to 129.51 N, which corresponds to a 60.13% decrease. However, the fairing has little impact on the lateral lift. The airflow velocity variations in the numerical simulation and experimental tests exhibit the same trend. The average relative error is about 10%, verifying the effectiveness of the numerical calculation method.