Aerodynamic Performance Of Vehicle Research Articles

Wind Tunnel Test on Local Wind Field around the Bridge Tower of a Truss Girder

The aerodynamic performance of vehicles on a bridge deck depends on the local wind field, especially in a region near a bridge tower. This study was carried out on a large‐scale (1: 20.4) truss girder, and wind tunnel tests were performed to determine how the wind fields were affected by the bridge tower in the presence of different wind barriers. The wind barrier parameters significantly affect the wind field. Wind barriers should be sufficiently high to provide a wide protection range and have relatively small porosities to reduce the wind speed. The opening form of the wind barrier should also be considered, where a circular‐holed form reduces the wind speed and turbulence more than a horizontal‐slatted form. The wind field is affected by structures and bridge towers on the deck. A turning point in the wind speed occurs at a measurement point near the bridge tower, and this point gradually moves upward towards lanes on the leeward side of the bridge. The equivalent wind speed is significantly reduced over a four‐meter height range because of shadowing from the bridge tower and the wind barrier.

CFD Analysis of Aerodynamic Drag Reduction in Heavy Vehicles by Changing its Frontal Area: Techinical Note

Nowadays, fuel efficiency of heavy vehicles became an ultimate issue to the manufacturing and design engineers. The best approach to reduce the fuel consumption is to improve the aerodynamic performance of vehicle. This can be achieved by reducing the drag, because drag coefficient is directly proportional with the fuel consumption. Design engineers trying to improve the heavy vehicle’s performance by manipulating various parameters such as engine parameters, weigh, rolling resistance and aerodynamic drag. In this project, efforts were made to increase the aerodynamic performance by changing the frontal area of the container. Computational analysis was carried out at various velocities (50km/hr, 60km/hr, and 70km/hr) by changing the frontal area of the container in heavy vehicles. Different truck geometries were done using CATIA V5 and the simulations were done using ANSYS CFX software. Results were obtained and comparative studies were made. As a result of comparisons between various designs, the cowl of 2h dimension shows better results in reducing the drag when compared with the other designs.

Research on optimal design method for drag reduction of vacuum pipeline vehicle body

ABSTRACTThe vacuum pipeline vehicle system is a novel conceptual system aimed to provide a high-speed public transportation service in the future, featured with a reduced-pressure tube in which pressurised capsules ride on a cushion of air that is driven by a combination of linear induction motors and air compressor. The capsule body has a great influence on the aerodynamic performance of vehicles. This work involves numerical simulations based on finite volume method to study the optimisation method for the parameter design of the vehicle body. The results show that the aerodynamic resistance of the optimised vehicle is further reduced, the drag reduction rate reaches 5.52%, and the speed of the Kantrowitz limit phenomenon is delayed from 760 to 860 km/h. The drag reduction effect is obvious.

Adaptive control of turbulence intensity is accelerated by frugal flow sampling.

The aerodynamic performance of vehicles and animals, as well as the productivity of turbines and energy harvesters, depends on the turbulence intensity of the incoming flow. Previous studies have pointed at the potential benefits of active closed-loop turbulence control. However, it is unclear what the minimal sensory and algorithmic requirements are for realizing this control. Here we show that very low-bandwidth anemometers record sufficient information for an adaptive control algorithm to converge quickly. Our online Newton-Raphson algorithm tunes the turbulence in a recirculating wind tunnel by taking readings from an anemometer in the test section. After starting at 9% turbulence intensity, the algorithm converges on values ranging from 10% to 45% in less than 12 iterations within 1% accuracy. By down-sampling our measurements, we show that very-low-bandwidth anemometers record sufficient information for convergence. Furthermore, down-sampling accelerates convergence by smoothing gradients in turbulence intensity. Our results explain why low-bandwidth anemometers in engineering and mechanoreceptors in biology may be sufficient for adaptive control of turbulence intensity. Finally, our analysis suggests that, if certain turbulent eddy sizes are more important to control than others, frugal adaptive control schemes can be particularly computationally effective for improving performance.

Aerodynamic Drag Reduction of SUV Based on Underbody Cover Board

The principles and method of computational fluid dynamics were applied to numerical simulate the external flow field about the SUV model. The hybrid mesh of tetrahedral and triangular prismatic as well as the turbulence model of Realizable k-ε was adopted to study the flow field of SUV of flat underground. Then the SUV of complex underground was simulated with the same mesh strategy and boundary condition. The aerodynamic drag coefficient of latter was bigger than former. That illuminated the complex underground has affect to aerodynamic performance of vehicle. The wind tunnel test validated the veracity of numerical simulation. Based on that, the underground cover board was appended; the aerodynamic drag coefficient was depressed. The velocity and pressure distribution and flow line were achieved. The conclusions provide theoretical reference for the further study of aerodynamic drag reduction of complex underground.