Shaping the Future of Road Haulage Trailer Design

Abstract

Aerodynamics is a subject that serves a wide range of industries and contains many different specialist areas in which to find expertise. Primarily concerned with the analysis of fluid flow, there are numerous applications: Aerospace and automobile manufacturers are the typical associations with aerodynamics, but there is increasing interest in the subject from industries and manufacturers that now have an incentive to pursue aerodynamic designs in the interest of fuel-efficiency. Freight and Commercial vehicles are one such industry. The Cartwright Group are a trailer bodybuilder manufacturing company based in Manchester; with ever increasing fuel-prices, they witnessed an increasing requirement for trailer designs that are more aerodynamically efficient in order to reduce the high fuel consumption faced by the end-user of heavy goods vehicle (HGV) trailers. An approach to aerodynamic design that produces quantifiable results is required, while also being accessible to laymen and presentable to potential end-users before any order to purchase decisions are made. This paper discusses an approach taken that combines traditional aerodynamic development, with visualisation and experimental simulation methods to meet these requirements.