During the last several years, wheel aerodynamics has been the focus of several projects and investigations for better understanding of their influence on the flow field around passenger vehicles and its effect on aerodynamic forces (1; 2; 3). Wheel aerodynamics in general has shown to be quite a complex phenomenon presenting many challenges to researchers. Although the wheel is split into tyre and rim, the aerodynamic effects of each cannot be easily separated as they seem to interact together to a large extent. The understanding of the aerodynamic effects these two components can be key in optimizing low drag rim and tyre designs for future road vehicles while also reducing road load through ventilation drag (4; 5; 6; 7; 8; 9). There are different methods for applying rotating boundary conditions to wheels yet each has its advantages and disadvantages. It has been seen that comparing detailed tyres to slick tyres can give different results based on the method used. The different ways of applying those methods or the ways they are implemented in the solver can result in various errors that need to be addressed. Even running sliding mesh on a slick tyre with a flat rim still showed some changes in both drag and lift. As it is very hard to apply sliding mesh on a loaded tyre in CFD simulations a new method has been implemented with the possibility of applying it on steady state simulations. The method is based on a combination of rotating wall and moving reference frame boundary conditions thus allowing it to be applied on nonrotationally symmetric objects. This method has not been tested yet on a loaded tyre though to investigate if any different problems might show up there. Results of its application, on two production tyres on a flat rim and on an S60 car, have shown to be promising. However, a broader range of tyres and rims still needs to be investigated as the current range of data is not statistically significant yet to judge the effectiveness of the method. A closer look at flow field changes also need to be taken into consideration especially with validation has to be carried out.
Study of different tyre simulation methods and effects on passenger car aerodynamics
2014
9 Seiten, Bilder, 12 Quellen
Aufsatz (Konferenz)
Englisch
Investigation of the Influence of Tyre Geometry on the Aerodynamics of Passenger Cars
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