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It is well known that in motorsport the wake from an upstream vehicle can be detrimental to the handling characteristics of a following vehicle, in particular in formulae with high levels of downforce. Previous investigations have been performed to characterize the wake from an open wheel race car and its effect on a following car, either through the use of multiple vehicles or purpose-built wake generators. This study investigates how the wake of an upstream race car impacts the aerodynamic performance of a following car in a close-following scenario. Wakes are imposed on the inlet of a CFD simulation and wake parameters (eg: velocity deficit, trailing vorticity) are directly manipulated to investigate their individual impacts on the following vehicle. The approach provides a useful alternative to the simulation of multi-vehicle cases but a better simulation could be achieved by including wake unsteadiness from the upstream vehicle.

The effect of the upstream wake of a Formula 1 car on a following vehicle has been investigated using experimental and computational methods. Multiple vehicle studies in conventional length wind tunnels pose challenges in achieving a realistic vehicle separation and the use of a short axial length wake generator provides an advantage here. Aerodynamic downforce and drag were seen to reduce, with greater force reductions experienced at shorter axial spacings. With lateral offsets, downforce recovers at a greater rate than drag, returning to the level for a vehicle in isolation for offsets greater than half a car width. The effect of the wake was investigated in CFD using multiple vehicle simulations and non-uniform inlet boundary conditions to recreate the wake. Results closely matched those for a full two-vehicle simulation provided the inlet condition included unsteady components of the onset wake.

Various techniques to reduce the aerodynamic drag of bluff bodies through the mechanism of base pressure recovery have been investigated. These include, for example, boat-tailing, base cavities and base bleed. In this study an Ahmed body in squareback configuration is modified to include a base cavity of variable depth, which can be ventilated by slots. The investigation is conducted in freestream and in ground proximity. It is shown that, with a plain cavity, the overall body drag is reduced for a wide range of cavity depths, but a distinct minimum drag condition is obtained. On adding ventilation slots a comparable drag reduction is achieved but at a greatly reduced cavity depth. Pressure data in the cavity is used to determine the base drag component and shows that the device drag component is significant. Modifications of the slot geometry to reduce this drag component and the effects of slot distribution are investigated.

A vehicle on the road encounters an unsteady flow due to turbulence in the natural wind, unsteady wakes of other vehicles and as a result of traversing through the stationary wakes of roadside obstacles. Unsteady effects occurring in the sideglass region of a vehicle are particularly relevant to wind noise. This is a region close to the driver and dominated by separated flow structures from the A-pillar and door mirrors, which are sensitive to unsteadiness in the onset flow. Since the sideglass region is of particular aeroacoustic importance, the paper seeks to determine what impact these unsteady effects have on the sources of aeroacoustic noise as measured inside the passenger compartment, in addition to the flow structures in this region. Data presented were obtained during on-road measurement campaigns using two instrumented vehicles, as well as from aeroacoustic wind tunnel tests.

A vehicle driving on the road experiences unsteady flow conditions which are not generally reproduced in the development environment. This paper investigates the potential importance of this difference to aeroacoustics and hence to occupant perception and proposes a methodology to enable better ranking of designs by taking account of wind noise modulation. Two approaches of reproducing the effects of unsteady wind on aeroacoustics were investigated: an active wind tunnel Turbulence Generation System (TGS) and a quasi-steady approach based on measurements at a series of fixed yaw angles. A number of tools were used to investigate the onset flow and its impacts, including roof-mounted probe, acoustic heads and surface microphones. External noise measurements help to reveal the response of separate exterior noise sources to yaw.