An Aerodynamic Assessment of Vehicle-Side Wall Interaction using Numerical Simulations

Abstract

The effects of induced pressure loads from a realistic vehicle onto the surface of a road-side wall are numerically investigated. Parameters such as vehicle speeds, vehicle-wall separation distances and the effects of inclined walls are examined to numerically characterize the vehicle-wall interactions. Aerodynamic characteristics such as the drag, lift, side forces and pressure coefficients are analyzed on the vehicle to provide a basis for comparison between each of the aforementioned variations. Our results demonstrate that a smaller separation distance between vehicle and wall enhances the pressure induced on both the wall and car which is found to be consistent with the experimental data published previously. We find that the presence of a wall in close proximity to the passing vehicle unfavourably influences the induced pressure on the side-wall and abruptly increases the drag, lift and side forces experienced by the vehicle. For a vertical side-wall, from a wall separation point of view, a separation distance of 1.35 normalized by the height of the vehicle tends to retrieve the cars’ original drag and lift value. In addition, our results demonstrate that a wall inclined to the ground favourably influences the aerodynamic characteristics of the vehicle compared to its vertical counterpart.