Wind Induced Vibration on High Speed Cars in Coastal Terrain for Straight and Curved Tracks

Abstract

The wind energy in different terrains of the world namely, coastal, urban, sub-urban and metropolitan are different. Therefore, the wind speed varies in different regions. So the analysis of wind effects on moving vehicles is different from terrain to terrain. Since the wind has its peak speed in coastal terrain, so the analysis of wind effects on moving vehicle in coastal region is of prime interest. The study of aerodynamic design of high speed car is mainly carried out by means of wind tunnel experiments and as well as methodologies of computational fluid dynamics. The difficulties of analytical analysis arise from the fact that the flow around a road vehicle is highly three dimensional, air does not follow the contours of the body every where, and unsteady wake is formed almost always. Now-a-days, with the advancement of computational fluid dynamics and heat transfer, the wind effect on high speed car can be studied and the drag offered by wind on the vehicle can be minimized incorporating the change of shape of car. For this analysis the shape of the vehicle plays a vital role. But it is difficult to simulate the atmospheric boundary layer in computational analysis of wind effect on moving vehicles in coastal terrain. So, one can go by the wind tunnel experiments by simulating atmospheric boundary layer for the particular terrain. Vibration problems occur wherever there are rotating or moving parts in a machinery. Apart from the machinery itself, the surrounding structure also faces problem due to vibration of machinery. One of the main causes of this vibration in high speed cars is the increase of unbalanced forces in the system due to wind load. On a curved track, due to Magnus effect an aerodynamic upward force will act on the vehicle because of circulation of wind around the car surface. In this work, authors are interested to find out the vehicle shapes which give minimum vibration both in the case of straight as well as curved tracks by the combination of experimental and computational method. The reduction of vibration of moving car improves fuel efficiency, vehicle performance and reduction in wind noise.