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Reducing energy consumption and emissions are ongoing challenges for the transport sector. The increased number of goods transports emphasize these challenges even more, as greenhouse gas emissions from these vehicles increased by 20 % between 1990 and 2013, in Sweden. One special case of goods transports is the transport of timber. Today in Sweden, around 2000 timber trucks transport around six billion ton kilometers every year. For every ton kilometer these vehicles use around 0.025 liter diesel, and there should exist large possibilities to reduce the fuel consumption and the emissions for these vehicles. Timber trucks spend most of their operation time travelling in speeds of around 80 km/h. At this speed aerodynamic drag contributes to around 30 % of the total vehicle resistance, which makes the aerodynamic drag a significant part of the energy consumption. One of the big challenges with timber trucks is that they travel unloaded half of the time.

There is a need for reducing fuel consumption and thereby also reducing CO2 and other emissions in all areas of transportation and the forest industry is no exception. In the particular case of timber trucks special care have to be taken when designing such vehicles; they have to be sturdy and operate in harsh conditions and they are being driven empty half the time. It is well known that the aerodynamic resistance constitutes a significant part of the vehicles driving resistance and four areas in particular, front of vehicle, gap, side/underbody and rear of the vehicle contributes about one quarter each. In order to address these issues a wind tunnel investigation was initiated where a 1:6 scale model of a timber truck was designed to operate in a 3.6 m wind tunnel. The present model resembles a generic timber truck with a flexible design such that different configurations could be tested easily.