Experimental and Numerical Aerodynamic Analysis of a Passenger Car: Influence of the Blockage Ratio on Drag Coefficient

2015 ◽  
Vol 137 (8) ◽  
Author(s):  
Armagan Altinisik ◽  
Emre Kutukceken ◽  
Habib Umur

Experimental and numerical investigations were performed to determine the pressure distributions and the drag forces on a passenger car model. Experiments were carried out with 1/5th scale model FIAT Linea for 20% and ~ 1% blockage ratios in the Uludag University Wind Tunnel (UURT) and in the Ankara Wind Tunnel (ART), respectively. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis for 1/5th scale model with 0%, 5%, and 20% blockage ratios was performed to validate various blockage correction methods supplementary to the experimental results. Three-dimensional, incompressible, and steady governing equations were solved by STAR-CCM+ code with realizable k–ε two-layer turbulence model. The calculated drag coefficients were in good agreement with the experimental results within 6%. Pressure coefficients on the model surfaces have shown similar trends in the experimental and numerical studies. Some of the existing blockage correction methods were successfully compared in this study and predicted drag coefficients were within ± 5%. The authors propose the continuity and the Sykes blockage correction methods for passenger car models because they are very simple and practical and they can be used economically for engineering applications.

1970 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 363-374 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. CHRISTIAN PARROTT

1. A black vulture (mass = 1.79 kg) gliding freely in a wind tunnel adjusted its wing span and wing area as its air speed and glide angle changed from 9.9 to 16.8 m/s and from 4.8° to 7.9°, respectively. 2. The minimum sinking speed was 1.09 m/s at an air speed of 11.3 m/s. 3. The maximum ratio of lift to drag forces was 11.6 at an air speed of 13.9 m/s. 4. Parasite drag coefficients for the vulture are similar to those for conventional airfoils and do not support the contention that black vultures have unusually low values of parasite drag.


1977 ◽  
Vol 99 (3) ◽  
pp. 503-509 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. E. Lee ◽  
B. F. Soliman

A study has been made of the influence of grouping parameters on the mean pressure distributions experienced by three dimensional bluff bodies immersed in a turbulent boundary layer. The range of variable parameters has included group density, group pattern and incident flow type and direction for a simple cuboid element form. The three flow regimes associated with increasing group density are reflected in both the mean drag forces acting on the body and their associated pressure distributions. A comparison of both pressure distributions and velocity profile parameters with established work on two dimensional bodies shows close agreement in identifying these flow regime changes. It is considered that the application of these results may enhance our understanding of some common flow phenomena, including turbulent flow over rough surfaces, building ventilation studies and environmental wind around buildings.


Author(s):  
M. B. Flathers ◽  
G. E. Bache ◽  
R. Rainsberger

The flowfield of a complex three dimensional radial inlet for an industrial pipeline centrifugal compressor has been experimentally determined on a half scale model. Based on the experimental results, inlet guide vanes have been designed to correct pressure and swirl angle distribution deficiencies. The unvaned and vaned inlets are analyzed with a commercially available fully 3D viscous Navier-Stokes code. Since experimental results were available prior to the numerical study, the unvaned analysis is considered a postdiction while the vaned analysis is considered a prediction. The computational results of the unvaned inlet have been compared to the previously obtained experimental results. The experimental method utilized for the unvaned inlet is repeated for the vaned inlet and the data has been used to verify the computational results. The paper will discuss experimental, design and computational procedures, grid generation, boundary conditions, and experimental versus computational methods. Agreement between experimental and computational results is very good, both in prediction and postdiction modes. The results of this investigation indicate that CFD offers a measurable advantage in design, schedule and cost and can be applied to complex, three dimensional radial inlets.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 168781401984047
Author(s):  
Wonyoung Jeon ◽  
Jeanho Park ◽  
Seungro Lee ◽  
Youngguan Jung ◽  
Yeesock Kim ◽  
...  

An experimental and analytical method to evaluate the performance of a loop-type wind turbine generator is presented. The loop-type wind turbine is a horizontal axis wind turbine with a different shaped blade. A computational fluid dynamics analysis and experimental studies were conducted in this study to validate the performance of the computational fluid dynamics method, when compared with the experimental results obtained for a 1/15 scale model of a 3 kW wind turbine. Furthermore, the performance of a full sized wind turbine is predicted. The computational fluid dynamics analysis revealed a sufficiently large magnitude of external flow field, indicating that no factor influences the flow other than the turbine. However, the experimental results indicated that the wall surface of the wind tunnel significantly affects the flow, due to the limited cross-sectional size of the wind tunnel used in the tunnel test. The turbine power is overestimated when the blockage ratio is high; thus, the results must be corrected by defining the appropriate blockage factor (the factor that corrects the blockage ratio). The turbine performance was corrected using the Bahaj method. The simulation results showed good agreement with the experimental results. The performance of an actual 3 kW wind turbine was also predicted by computational fluid dynamics.


Author(s):  
Ravi Challa ◽  
V. G. Idichandy ◽  
C. P. Vendhan ◽  
Solomon Yim

The dynamics of a generic rigid water-landing object (WLO) during water impact is presented in this paper. Tests from a range of drop heights were performed in a wave basin using a 1/6th-Froude scale model of a practical prototype using different drop mechanisms to determine the water impact and contact effects. The first experimental case involved dropping the WLO by using a rope and pulley arrangement, while the second case employed an electromagnetic release to drop the object. Hydrodynamic parameters including peak acceleration, touchdown pressure and maximum impact/contact force were measured using the two different drop mechanisms. The WLO was assumed as rigid, so the experimental results could be correlated with von Karman and Wagner closed form solutions and the maximum accelerations predicted are bounded by these classical analytical solutions. The major purpose of this study are to use the experiments to determine trends that occur when the object is dropped from successive heights using different drop mechanisms by varying the entry speed, angle of impact and the weight of the object. The predictions from the experimental results were used for subsequent numerical studies. Results from the drop tests show that the impact acceleration and touchdown pressure increases practically linearly with the increase in the height of the drop and the data provides conditions of drop mechanism that keep impact accelerations under specified limits for the WLO prototype.


1996 ◽  
Vol 118 (2) ◽  
pp. 371-384 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. B. Flathers ◽  
G. E. Bache ◽  
R. Rainsberger

The flow field of a complex three-dimensional radial inlet for an industrial pipeline centrifugal compressor has been experimentally determined on a half-scale model. Based on the experimental results, inlet guide vanes have been designed to correct pressure and swirl angle distribution deficiencies. The unvaned and vaned inlets are analyzed with a commercially available fully three-dimensional viscous Navier–Stokes code. Since experimental results were available prior to the numerical study, the unvaned analysis is considered a postdiction while the vaned analysis is considered a prediction. The computational results of the unvaned inlet have been compared to the previously obtained experimental results. The experimental method utilized for the unvaned inlet is repeated for the vaned inlet and the data have been used to verify the computational results. The paper will discuss experimental, design, and computational procedures, grid generation, boundary conditions, and experimental versus computational methods. Agreement between experimental and computational results is very good, both in prediction and postdiction modes. The results of this investigation indicate that CFD offers a measurable advantage in design, schedule, and cost and can be applied to complex, three-dimensional radial inlets.


2019 ◽  
Vol 141 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nur Alom ◽  
Ujjwal K. Saha

The elliptical-bladed Savonius wind turbine rotor has become a subject of interest because of its better energy capturing capability. Hitherto, the basic parameters of this rotor such as overlap ratio, aspect ratio, and number of blades have been studied and optimized numerically. Most of these studies estimated the torque and power coefficients (CT and CP) at given flow conditions. However, the two important aerodynamic forces, viz., the lift and the drag, acting on the elliptical-bladed rotor have not been studied. This calls for a deeper investigation into the effect of these forces on the rotor performance to arrive at a suitable design configuration. In view of this, at the outset, two-dimensional (2D) unsteady simulations are conducted to find the instantaneous lift and drag forces acting on an elliptical-bladed rotor at a Reynolds number (Re) = 0.892 × 105. The shear stress transport (SST) k–ω turbulence model is used for solving the unsteady Reynolds averaged Navier–Stokes equations. The three-dimensional (3D) unsteady simulations are then performed which are then followed by the wind tunnel experiments. The drag and lift coefficients (CD and CL) are analyzed for 0–360 deg rotation of rotor with an increment of 1 deg. The total pressure, velocity magnitude, and turbulence intensity contours are obtained at various angles of rotor rotation. For the elliptical-bladed rotor, the average CD, CL, and CP, from 3D simulation, are found to be 1.31, 0.48, and 0.26, respectively. The average CP for the 2D elliptical profile is found to be 0.34, whereas the wind tunnel experiments demonstrate CP to be 0.19.


Author(s):  
Richard Kirkman ◽  
Meredith Metzger ◽  
Mark Deaver ◽  
Eric Pardyjak

The present paper describes the design of the TreadPort Adaptive Wind Tunnel (TPAWT), which is a wind tunnel retrofit to the University of Utah Treadport Virtual Environment (VE). The TPAWT integrates haptic wind sensation with the preexisting VE, which includes a large tilting treadmill and a cave-like frontal visual display. Desired flow patterns at the center of the TPAWT (where the VE user stands) are generated by appropriately steering the inlet airstream from two sets of vents embedded in the side walls of the facility. Hypothetically, the addition of haptic wind sensation in the virtual environment will improve the sense of immersion in the virtual reality. The present study focuses on quantifying the sensitivity of the flow field inside the TPAWT to perturbations in boundary conditions at the vents. Results from three-dimensional and two-dimensional numerical simulations are compared to laboratory experiments in a 1:4 scale model of the TPAWT. The stability of the flow near the VE user is shown to be highly sensitive to the angle of the mean flow at the vent boundary.


Author(s):  
Steven A. Schmied ◽  
Jonathan R. Binns ◽  
Martin R. Renilson ◽  
Giles A. Thomas ◽  
Gregor J. Macfarlane ◽  
...  

In this paper, the design of a circular wave pool that produces continuously breaking waves is discussed, whereby a pressure source is rotated within an annular wave pool. The concept was that the pressure source generates non-breaking waves that propagate inward to the inner ring of the annulus, where a sloping bathymetry (beach) triggers wave breaking. In order to refine the technique, research was conducted to better understand the mechanics of waves generated by moving pressure sources in a constrained waterway, the transformation of these waves as they travel across the channel and the effect of the sloping beach on the wave quality for surfing. The quality of the waves was defined in terms of wave height, speed and shape, with the aim to create plunging waves, known as “barrels”, that are highly desired by surfers. A predominantly experimental approach was undertaken to determine the required design parameter values and their limitations. Scale model experimental results were previously presented at OMAE 2011 and OMAE2013. This paper presents the steps to design the pool using the empirical analysis and experimental results are presented. The effect of the pressure source and pool bathymetry on the currents formed in the pool, are also presented. Through this design process, high quality continuous breaking waves with the desired plunging shape were able to be generated. Finally, the authors are planning to use the facilities and techniques developed to investigate the complexities of predefined wave fields, including the three dimensional (3D) details of the velocity, pressure and turbulence fields beneath. Understanding these complexities within multidimensional wave patterns is the key to analysing a number of different fields, including wave resistance of ships; wave disturbances to other maritime users; bank erosion; wave signal tracking; and wave structure interaction.


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