Technical Paper
On the Steady and Unsteady Turbulence Modeling in Ground Vehicle Aerodynamic Design and Optimization
2011-09-11
2011-24-0163
Computational Fluid Dynamics is nowadays largely employed as an effective optimization tool in the automotive industry, especially for what concerns aerodynamic design driven by critical factors such as the engine cooling system optimization and the reduction of drag forces, both limited by continuously changing stylistic constraints. The Ahmed reference model is a generic car-type bluff body with a slant back, which is frequently used as a benchmark test case by industrial as well as academic researchers, in order to investigate the performances of different turbulence modeling approaches. In spite of its relatively simple geometry, the Ahmed model possesses many of the typical aerodynamic features of a modern passenger car - a bluff body with separated boundary layers, recirculating flows and complex three-dimensional wake structures.