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Technical Paper

An Experimental Study of the Impact of Underbody Roughness on the Instantaneous Wake Flow Topology behind a Truck Geometry

2018-04-03
2018-01-0714
The turbulent wake behind a truck is responsible for a considerable proportion of the total aerodynamic drag. There is evidence to suggest that the underbody flow affects the wake topology, although this interaction is not well understood. Typical truck trailer underbodies are geometrically very complex and have a range of bluff bodies - such as the wheel and axle assembly, structural beams or the secondary fuel tank for refrigerated trucks - attached. These components block the underbody flow and erode its momentum. However, most of the previous studies of the wake flow have used models with clean underbodies. It is thus uncertain whether the wake shapes found by these studies accurately represent the wake topology behind a real truck with a detailed underbody.
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