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The aerodynamic characteristics of a vehicle have a significant role on its dynamics performances, fuel consumption, level of produced noise etc. In this sense the automotive engineers design vehicle having some much elaborated exterior shape, the main goal being the reduction of drag. But, in many cases, the geometry of the underbody was neglected from this point of view, especially in the cases of the off-road vehicles, which have recently become more versatile, as seen in Sport Utility Vehicles (SUV). In this paper, using a SUV as example, the contribution of the underbody geometry on total drag is studied using the facilities offered by a professional CFD code. The results show that solutions for the optimization of the body of vehicles from an aerodynamic point of view can be obtained even in a very early design stage, accelerating the design process.

Because the aerodynamic loads, which are acting on the high-speed vehicles, play a significant part concerning the dynamic behaviour of the latter, the aerodynamics is one of the most important design considerations for cars such as Indy or Formula 1. The goal of this study is to investigate the contributions of the main structural components of a racing car on total drag using the facilities offered by a professional CFD code. The results show solutions for the optimization of the body of vehicles from an aerodynamic point of view, even in a very early design stage, the design process being accelerated.