Large Eddy Simulation of Vehicle Aerodynamics Using Parallel Computational Fluids Dynamics

Author(s):  
Abd-Munim Abd-Halim ◽  
Muhamad Husaini Abu Bakar
Author(s):  
Makoto Tsubokura ◽  
Takuji Nakashima ◽  
Nobuyuki Oshima ◽  
Kozo Kitoh ◽  
Huilai Zhang ◽  
...  

The world’s largest class unsteady turbulence simulations of flow around vehicles were conducted using Large Eddy Simulation (LES) on the Earth Simulator in Japan. The main objective of our study is to investigate the validity of LES, as an alternative to a conventional wind tunnel measurement or the Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes method, for the assessment of vehicle aerodynamics.


Author(s):  
Makoto Tsubokura ◽  
Yuki Ikawa ◽  
Masashi Kitayama ◽  
Takuji Nakashima

A large eddy simulation method based on a fully unstructured finite volume method was developed, and the unsteady aerodynamic response of a road vehicle subjected to transient crosswinds was investigated. The method was first validated on the 1/20-scale wind tunnel model at a static aerodynamic condition and showed good agreement in the surface pressure distributions. The method was then applied to two transient crosswind situations: a sinusoidal perturbation representing the typical length scale of atmospheric turbulence, and a stepwise crosswind velocity corresponding to a wind gust. Typical transient responses of the aerodynamic forces and moments such as phase shifting and undershoot or overshoot were observed, and their dependence on the frequency and amplitude of the input perturbation is discussed. As a result, the utility and validity of LES is demonstrated in the context that such transient aerodynamic forces are difficult to measure in the conventional wind tunnel measurements.


Author(s):  
S. Krajnovic ◽  
L. Davidson

The feasibility of use of large-eddy simulation (LES) in external vehicle aerodynamics is investigated. The computational cost needed for LES of the full size car at road conditions is beyond the capability of the computers in the near future (Krajnovic´ (2002)). Since LES cannot be used for quantitative prediction of this flow, i.e. obtaining the aerodynamic forces and moments, an alternative use of this technique is suggested that can enhance the understanding of the flow around a car. It is found that making LES of the flow around simplified car-like shapes at lower Reynolds number can increase our knowledge of the flow around a car. Two simulations are made, one of the flow around a cube and the other of the flow around a simplified bus. The former simulation proved that LES with relatively coarse resolution and simple inlet boundary condition can provide accurate results. The latter simulation resulted in flow in agreement with experimental observations and displayed some flow features that were not observed in experiments or steady simulations of such flows. This simulation gave us possibility to study the transient mechanisms that are responsible for the aerodynamic properties of a car. The knowledge gained from this simulation can be used by the stylist to tune the aerodynamics of the car’s design but also by the CFD specialists to improve the turbulence models.


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