Container Effect on Truck Aerodynamic CFD Simulation,ANSYS Fluent Training

Description

Container Effect on Truck Aerodynamic CFD Simulation

description

Aerodynamics is a part of mechanics that is very important in car design. This is even more important when designing a truck; Because these cars have more weight, the air resistance in their movement should be reduced as much as possible to have better forward movement. Drag force means air resistance to forward motion and is one of the most important forces to be considered.

The aerodynamic CFD simulation of the truck and the drag force calculation helps us have a good prediction of different forces, especially the drag force around the truck. This directly impacts the truck’s fuel consumption and is essential from an energy and environmental perspective.

This project aims to investigate and analyze the drag force on the truck and compare it in two cases with and without a container by ANSYS Fluent software.

First, the truck’s geometry is designed in Solidworks software and  Design Modeler software. The geometry is prepared to create meshing and name selection; then, it is implemented in ANSYS Meshing software. Also, the mesh type is polyhedral, and 663,127 and 1,095,371 elements are produced for ‘truck‘ and ‘truck and container,’ respectively.

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Container Effect on Truck Aerodynamic CFD Simulation Methodology

The flow simulation and investigation have been done by comparing the two truck modes with and without containers. We chose the k-w SST turbulence model with standard wall function to obtain better results in our simulation. The pressure and momentum coupling method is SIMPLE.

The solver used is pressure-based.

conclusion

Descriptions of geometry, meshing, boundary conditions, fluid properties, Y-plus (Y+) criterion, and results are in order. In both modes, speed, pressure, and drag force will be examined, and we will introduce the best possible mode for drag reduction.

The results show that the drag force is less in the absence of the container than in the presence of it. This means that it is better to move the truck without the container. Of course, if the problem is done locally in the two parts of the back of the truck and the back of the container, the presence of the container will delay the separation of flow in the back of the truck.

On the other hand, the delay in separation causes the flow from the end of the container to cause less drag due to the smaller angle than the edge of the roof of the new truck. The images related to the flow lines in the back of the truck and behind the container show that the intensity of the vortices is effective from the angle of the top edge of the truck in the back of the truck in empty truck condition. This result can also be seen in the pressure coefficient diagram for comparing the two.