31th Congress of the International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences

03.1 - Aerodynamics - CFD Methods and Validation

AERODYNAMIC EVALUATION OF THE EXTERNAL FLOW OVER PICKUP TRUCKS

E.-K. Mascia¹, O. de Almeida¹; ¹Federal University of Uberlandia, Brazil

The computational analysis of the external flow over automotive vehicles is increasingly important in the automotive industry since it provides consistent and reliable results which enable significant improvements in new products. In this context this work proposes an aerodynamic evaluation by numerical modeling of the external flow over notchbacks and pickups trucks. As a tool in engineering it is proposed the use of an open source code OpenFOAM for the qualitative and quantitative analysis of the flow over the Ahmed body and DrivAer models. Different meshes and numerical methods were evaluated – RANS (Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes) and DES (Detached Eddy Simulation). The results were compared to experimental measurements and literature data in order to validate the numerical approach to be applied in future vehicle aerodynamics analyses.


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