CFD Simulation over a Passenger Car for Aerodynamic Drag Reduction

Numerical prediction of incompressible turbulent flow has been performed on a passenger car body moving with a velocity of 11.11 m/s (40 km/hr). CATIA, 3D modeling software was used to model 3D surface modeling of the car. FLUENT, the computational fluid dynamics code, which in-corporate k-ε turbulence model and segregated implicit solver was used to perform computation. The aerodynamic analysis was performed to study the flow behavior of the air over the car body. The analysis includes the contours of pressure and velocity that impacts the car body followed by an evaluation of the coefficient of lift and drag. In the present work, model of generic passenger car has been developed in CATIA and generated the wind tunnel and applied the boundary conditions in FLUENT platform then after testing and simulation has been performed for the evaluation of drag coefficient for passenger car. In another case, the aerodynamics of the most suitable design of tail plate is introduced and analyzed for the evaluation of drag coefficient for passenger car. The addition of tail plates results in a reduction of the drag-coefficient and lift coefficient in head-on wind. Rounding the edges partially reduces drag in head-on wind but does not bring about the significant improvements in the aerodynamic efficiency of the passenger car with tail plates, it can be obtained. Hence, the drag force can be reduced by using add on devices on vehicle and fuel economy, stability of a passenger car can be improved.