Reduction effects of drag by a wind deflector attached on a truck container

Abstract

Recently, reduction of CO2 emissions from automobiles is carried out in the world. The improvement in aerodynamics and reduced in CO2 emissions have been realized with passenger cars. However, there is still some room for improvement between trucks and trailers in aerodynamics. In this study, a wind deflector attached on the container of a truck was proposed to reduce the drag. To investigate the effects, the drag and flow patterns over a small-scale truck model were measured in a small wind tunnel. Furthermore, the drag, flow patterns, and pressure distributions of a full-scale truck model were examined at a highway driving condition by Computational Fluid Dynamics. It was found that the drag can be reduced without losing container space by the wind deflector attached on the container. The maximum decreasing ratio of drag was 3.4%. As the reason of the drag reduction, it was found that the wind deflector reduces size of wake flow and increases static pressure behind the vehicle.

Keywords

• heavy duty
• truck
• trailer
• drag reduction
• vortex
• piv
• cfd