scholarly journals Bionic shape design of electric locomotive and aerodynamic drag reduction

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (48) ◽  
pp. 99-109
Author(s):  
Zhenfeng WU ◽  
Yanzhong HUO ◽  
Wangcai DING ◽  
Zihao XIE

Bionics has been widely used in many fields. Previous studies on the application of bionics in locomotives and vehicles mainly focused on shape optimisation of high-speed trains, but the research on bionic shape design in the electric locomotive field is rare. This study investigated a design method for streamlined electric locomotives according to the principles of bionics. The crocodiles were chosen as the bionic object because of their powerful and streamlined head shape. Firstly, geometric characteristic lines were extracted from the head of a crocodile by analysing the head features. Secondly, according to the actual size requirements of the electric locomotive head, a free-hand sketch of the bionic electric locomotive head was completed by adjusting the position and scale of the geometric characteristic lines. Finally, the non-uniform rational B-splines method was used to establish a 3D digital model of the crocodile bionic electric locomotive, and the main and auxiliary control lines were created. To verify the drag reduction effect of the crocodile bionic electric locomotive, numerical simulations of aerodynamic drag were performed for the crocodile bionic and bluff body electric locomotives at different speeds in open air by using the CFD software, ANSYS FLUENT16.0. The geometric models of crocodile bionic and bluff body electric locomotives were both marshalled with three cars, namely, locomotive + middle car + locomotive, and the size of the two geometric models was uniform. Dimensions and grids of the flow field were defined. And then, according to the principle of motion relativity, boundary conditions of flow field were defined. The results indicated that the crocodile bionic electric locomotive demonstrated a good aerodynamic performance. At the six sampling speeds in the range of 40–240 km/h, the aerodynamic drag coefficient of the crocodile bionic electric locomotive decreased by 7.7% on the average compared with that of the bluff body electric locomotive.

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
S. Shitrit

Abstract The aerodynamic performance of conventional aircraft configurations are mainly affected by the wing and horizontal tail. Drag reduction by shape optimisation of the wing, while taking into account the aircraft trimmed constraint, has more benefit than focusing solely on the wing. So in order to evaluate this approach, the following study presents results of a single and multipoint aerodynamic shape optimisation of the wing-body-tail configuration, defined by the Aerodynamic Design Discussion Group (ADODG). Most of the aerodynamic shape optimisation problems published in the last years are focused mainly on the wing as the main driver for performance improvement, with no trim constraint and/or excess drag obtained from the fuselage, fins or other parts. This work partially fills this gap by an investigation of RANS-based aerodynamic optimisation for transonic trimmed flight. Mesh warping and geometry parametrisation is accomplished by fitting the multi-block structured grid to a B-spline volumes and performing the mesh movement by using surface control points embedded within the free-form deformation (FFD) volumes. A gradient-based optimisation algorithm is used with an adjoint method in order to compute the derivatives of the objective and constraint functions with respect to the design variables. In this work the aerodynamic shape optimisation of the CRM wing-body-tail configuration is investigated, including a trim constraint that is satisfied by rotating the horizontal tail. The shape optimisation is driven by 432 design variables that envelope the wing surface, and 120 shape variables for the tail, as well as the angle of attack and tail rotation angles. The constraints are the lift coefficient, wing’s thickness controlled by 1,000 control points, and the wing’s volume. For the untrimmed configuration the drag coefficient is reduced by 5.76%. Optimising the wing with a trim condition by tail rotation results in shock-free design with a considerably improved drag, even better than the untrimmed-optimised case. The second optimisation problem studied is a single and multi-point lift constraint drag minimisation of a gliding configuration wing in transonic viscous flow. The shock is eliminated, reducing the drag of the untrimmed configuration by more than 60%, using 192 design variables. Further robustness is achieved through a multi-point optimisation with more than 45% drag reduction.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (23) ◽  
pp. 5213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kun Chen ◽  
Chen-Yao Wei ◽  
Zhi-Wei Shi

The flap lift device is an important part of the conventional configuration of aircrafts and has an important impact on the aerodynamic performance. In this paper, a high-efficiency, simple, and energy-saving nanosecond dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma actuator is placed in the vicinity of the flap lift device to improve the aerodynamic performance of the flap by controlling the flow field. The two-dimensional airfoil GAW-1 and its 29% flap were selected as the research objects, and the nanosecond (NS) DBD actuators were fixed at different locations near the deflection angle of the 10°flap. The excitation frequency, pulse width, and energy density parameters of the pulse discharge were adjusted, and then, the effects of parameter changes on aerodynamic characteristics of the airfoil were studied by numerical simulation. The simulation results show that adjusting the excitation frequency on the aerodynamic drag is weak and that the effect on the aerodynamic lift is obvious. The increase of the discharge pulse width will have a more significant effect on the flow field, i.e., a proper increase of the discharge pulse width can achieve better drag reduction, and increase lift after a stall at a high angle of attack. Although the increase of discharge energy density can strengthen the pulse perturbation effect on the flow field, it also contributes to some adverse effects and has no obvious optimization effect on the control efficiency of lift increase and drag reduction.


2014 ◽  
Vol 635-637 ◽  
pp. 316-319
Author(s):  
Peng Guo ◽  
Jun Yuan Zhang ◽  
Qi Fei Li ◽  
Xing Jun Hu

Multiple schemes are adapted on truck's outer flow field based on numerical simulation. Comparative analysis with the state of air flow, the pressure distribution, the air movement between the cab and cargo is pursued, then obtain the effect of jet flow velocity to the truck Cd. With the increasing of the jet velocity, Cd increases first and then decreases. The maximum drag reduction can reaches 7.38%.


Author(s):  
Jesper Marklund ◽  
Lennart Lofdahl

The flow field around bluff bodies constitutes a classic area within fluid dynamics and has been the topic for much research through the years. However, in the use for road vehicles with the effect of the ground, the behavior is changed very much from more classical aviation usage. In this paper we are investigating the drag force reduction on a vehicle like simplified model with rear open diffuser when stationary ground simulation is considered. The objective with this work was to study the rear end of a bluff body and optimize it for drag with ground vehicle like boundaries. Here the testing contains two common body variants, square back, boat tailed/fastback in generic forms. Scale model testing combined with simulations is used to explain behavior and flow field. The model testing is performed in the L2 scale model wind tunnel at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. Simulations are done with the commercial CFD code Fluent. A diffuser on a car is normally used to create down force but here it is tested to see if the energy in the flow can be used to optimize reduction of drag. One part of the study is to show the potential in optimizing the rear end underbody for drag, by varying the diffuser angle. The results show a potential in drag reduction by using a diffuser and varying effect depending on other rear end geometries.


2014 ◽  
Vol 602-605 ◽  
pp. 477-480
Author(s):  
Jing Yu Wang ◽  
Bao Yu Wang ◽  
Xing Jun Hu ◽  
Lei Liao

The principles and method of computational fluid dynamics were applied to numerical simulate the external flow field about the SUV model. The hybrid mesh of tetrahedral and triangular prismatic as well as the turbulence model of Realizable k-ε was adopted to study the flow field of SUV of flat underground. Then the SUV of complex underground was simulated with the same mesh strategy and boundary condition. The aerodynamic drag coefficient of latter was bigger than former. That illuminated the complex underground has affect to aerodynamic performance of vehicle. The wind tunnel test validated the veracity of numerical simulation. Based on that, the underground cover board was appended; the aerodynamic drag coefficient was depressed. The velocity and pressure distribution and flow line were achieved. The conclusions provide theoretical reference for the further study of aerodynamic drag reduction of complex underground.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Hongqing Lv ◽  
Lei Xu ◽  
Zhenqing Wang ◽  
Xiaobin Zhang

As an active flow field control technology, reverse jet and rectifier cone can significantly affect the flow field around the high-speed aircraft and reduce the drag and heat of high-speed aircraft to a certain extent. In this paper, the CFD numerical method is used to simulate and analyze the flow around the bluff body front rectifier cone and the reverse jet interference flow field. Further considering the combination of the two, the flow field structure around the bluff body under the combination of rectifying cone and reverse jet flow was simulated. Research shows, for the flow field of a single reverse jet, the pressure ratio of the reverse jet to the main flow has a significant effect on the drag reduction performance. With the change of the pressure ratio of the jet to the main flow, two modes of long jet and short jet will appear. The structure of the short jet modal flow field is relatively stable. However, with the increase of attack angle, the shear layer of free flow will attach to the shock wave and form hot spot, which is a great threat to high-speed aircraft. When the rectifier cone and the reverse jet are combined, within a certain angle of attack, the wall will not form a reattachment shock wave. The area behind the bow shock and in front of the aircraft head is a free-state zone, which has a good cooling effect on the aircraft head. At the same time, the static pressure on the wall is reduced, which has a very good drag reduction effect.


2010 ◽  
Vol 114 (1154) ◽  
pp. 225-236 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. C. Mehta

Abstract A forward facing spike attached to a hemispherical body significantly changes its flow field and influences aerodynamic drag and wall heat flux in a high speed flow. The dynamic pressure in the recirculation area is highly reduced and this leads to the decrease in the aerodynamic drag and heat load on the surface. Consequently, the geometry, that is, the length and shape of the spike, has to be simulated in order to obtain a large conical recirculation region in front of the blunt body to get beneficial drag reduction. It is, therefore, a potential candidate for aerodynamic drag reduction for a future high speed vehicle. Axisymmetric compressible laminar Navier-Stokes equations are solved using a finite volume discretisation in conjunction with a multistage Runge-Kutta time stepping scheme. The effect of the spike length and shape, and the spike nose configuration on the reduction of drag is numerically evaluated at Mach 6 at a zero angle-of-attack. The computed density contours agree well with the schlieren images. Additional modification to the tip of the spike to get different types of flow field such as the formation of a shock wave, separation area and reattachment point are examined. The spike geometries include the conical spike, the flat-disk spike and the hemispherical disk spike of different length to diameter ratios attached to the blunt body.


2013 ◽  
Vol 365-366 ◽  
pp. 474-477
Author(s):  
Yu Kun Liu ◽  
Qi Fei Li ◽  
Guan Qun Li ◽  
Ao Liu ◽  
Xing Jun Hu

In order to reduce the aerodynamic drag of heavy-duty truck, four different shape and style of deflectors based on the original one are added. With the method of numerical simulation, the influence of deflector on the flow field of the cab and the vehicle was analyzed, and the mechanism of aerodynamic drag and the measures of drag reduction were discussed in the study. When driving at speed of 30m/s, the aerodynamic drag will be significantly reduced with the contributions of all the four deflectors. The optimal solution can reach a reduction about 14%.


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