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Beamforming techniques are widely used today in aeroacoustic wind tunnels to identify wind noise sources generated by interaction between incoming flow and the test object. In this study, a planar spiral microphone array with 120 channels was set out-of-flow at 1:1 aeroacoustic wind tunnel of Shanghai Automotive Wind Tunnel Center (SAWTC) to test exterior wind noise sources of a production car. Simultaneously, 2 reference microphones were set in vehicle interior to record potential sound source signal near the left side view mirror triangle and the signal of driver’s ear position synchronously. In addition, a spherical array with 48 channels was set inside the vehicle to identify interior noise sources synchronously as well. With different correlation methods and an advanced algorithm CLEAN-SC, the ranking of contributions of vehicle exterior wind noise sources to interested interior noise locations was accomplished.

Wheel Aerodynamics is an important part of vehicle aerodynamics. The wheels can notably influence the total aerodynamic drag, lift and ventilation drag of vehicles. In order to simulate the real on-road condition of driving cars, the moving ground and wheel rotation is of major importance in CFD. However, the wheel rotation condition is difficult to be represented exactly, so this is still a critical topic which needs to be worked on. In this paper, a study, which focuses on two types of cars: a fastback sedan and a notchback DrivAer, is conducted. Comparing three different wheel rotating simulation methods: steady Moving wall, MRF and unsteady Sliding Mesh, the effects of different methods for the numerical simulation of vehicle aerodynamics are revealed. Discrepancies of aerodynamic forces between the methods are discussed as well as the flow field, and the simulation results are also compared with published experimental data for validation.

A comfortable thermal environment can alleviate fatigue, reduce irritability, and improve driving safety. However, it is rather a challenge to evaluate thermal comfort inside a vehicle due to multifarious geometric and environmental factors as well as human differences. This study conducted a series of field experiments both in summer and winter conditions, measuring the thermal environment parameters inside the compartment and the skin temperature of experimental personnel, and carrying out subjective thermal sensation and comfort questionnaires. The experimental results showed that head and trunk are the most relevant parts of all human body parts to the overall thermal sensation/comfort. For overall thermal sensation, the value of regression R2 referring to head/trunk is 0.691/0.721, while those corresponding to overall thermal comfort is 0.802/0.773.

This paper reports an experimental investigation of the wake flow behind a 1/12 scale notchback MIRA model at Re = UL/ν = 6.9×105 (where U is free-stream velocity, L the length of the model and ν viscosity). Focus is placed on the flow asymmetry over the backlight and decklid. Forty pressure taps are used to map the surface pressure distribution on the backlight and decklid, while the wake topology is investigated by means of 2D Particle Image Velocimetry. The analysis of the instantaneous pressure signals over the notch configuration clearly shows that the pressure presents a bi-stable behavior in the spanwise direction, characterized by the switches between two preferred values, which is not found in the vertical direction.