An Investigation of Aerodynamic Characteristics of Two Bluff Bodies in Close Longitudinal Proximity – Sensitivity to Front-End Geometry
2022-01-1092
03/29/2022
- Event
- Content
- With an increasing focus on the reduction of greenhouse gases by transport industries and the continued development of connected and autonomous vehicle systems, the potential for aerodynamic drag reduction by means of managed systems of vehicles travelling in close-proximity, termed “platooning”, has continued as topic for research. For commercial vehicles the principle variable for drag reduction has been the inter-vehicle spacing since, in effect, the constituents of platoons are of similar geometry. Early-work in passenger car platooning was also conducted with homogeneous platoons, but more recently the use of systematic changes in upper-body geometry has provided a further variable in the assessment of platooning characteristics. The work shown in this paper adds to investigations illustrated in SAE Papers 2019-01-0659 and 2021-01-0952 using the Windsor model with interchangeable backlight angle geometry. For this investigation a new add-on geometry to the nose was introduced to provide a simplified bonnet feature in order to vary the on-set flow approaching the platoon and also to influence the flow in the gap between test models. As previously the presence of the trailing model resulted in significant drag reductions for the leading model due to wake suppression. The “shielding” effect of the leading model gave a more significant drag reduction on the front of the trailing model when fitted with the nose addition compared to the standard nose. But acceleration of the flow around the A-pillars of the trailing model was negated resulting in small total drag increases.
- Citation
- MacAskill, J., Le Good, G., and Cirstea, R., "An Investigation of Aerodynamic Characteristics of Two Bluff Bodies in Close Longitudinal Proximity – Sensitivity to Front-End Geometry," SAE Technical Paper 2022-01-1092, 2022, .