Designing aerodynamically favourable wheels is an important part in the aerodynamic development for a modern passenger car. The design of the wheel has a large influence an the local wheel housing flow, but also significant interaction with the engine bay and underbody flow, as well as the base wake. Consequently it is the net drag of the vehicle that must be considered when optimising the wheel design. This work investigated the possibility of developing a linear regression model for predicting the aerodynamic performance of a given wheel design. The final model developed in this work requires 10 different measurements that are easily made in CAD, and was able to predict most configurations within a few drag counts. Important design features were found to be related to various wheel covering approaches, spoke size and shape, and the rim profile. Furthermore it was found that changes in base pressure did not correspond to changes in overall aerodynamic drag which suggests possibilities for further reductions in drag. Front axle lift was found to generally increase with reduced aerodynamic drag; whereas rear axle lift showed no clear trend relative to drag. Being able to estimate the aerodynamic performance of a wheel design with a simple model long before any physical prototype exists, and without the use of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), is highly desirable. The work presented in this study clearly showed the possibilities of developing such a mode!. The current model does however still have limitations in accuracy, and effects of additional geometric wheel factors, vehicle type, tyre width and lateral position are good topics for future investigations in order to further improve the current model.


    Access

    Access via TIB

    Check availability in my library

    Order at Subito €


    Export, share and cite



    Title :

    An experimental investigation of wheel design parameters with respect to aerodynamic drag


    Contributors:


    Publication date :

    2012


    Size :

    16 Seiten, 9 Bilder, 3 Tabellen, 17 Quellen



    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    Print


    Language :

    English




    Development of Aerodynamic Drag Reduction around Rear Wheel

    Hirabayashi, Hidekazu / Higuchi, Hirotaka / Kondo, Tadashi | SAE Technical Papers | 2021


    Development of Aerodynamic Drag Reduction around Rear Wheel

    Higuchi, Hirotaka / Hirabayashi, Hidekazu / Kondo, Tadashi | British Library Conference Proceedings | 2021


    Experimental investigation of wheel spin-up drag loads

    Milwitzky, B. / Lindquist, D.C. / Potter, D.M. | Engineering Index Backfile | 1954


    Impact of wheel rotation on aerodynamic drag and lift

    Kandasamy, Satheesh / Duncan, Bradley / Gau, Holger et al. | Tema Archive | 2012


    Impact of wheel rotation on aerodynamic drag and lift

    Kandasamy,S. / Duncan,B. / Gau,H. et al. | Automotive engineering | 2012