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The rear end geometry of road vehicles has a significant impact on aerodynamic drag and hence on energy consumption. Notchback (sedan) geometries can produce a particularly complex flow structure which can include substantial flow asymmetry. However, the interrelation between rear end geometry, flow asymmetry and aerodynamic drag has lacked previous published systematic investigation. This work examines notchback flows using a family of 16 parametric idealized models. A range of techniques are employed including surface flow visualization, force measurement, multi-hole probe measurements in the wake, PIV over the backlight and trunk deck and CFD. It is shown that, for the range of notchback geometries investigated here, a simple offset applied to the effective backlight angle can collapse the drag coefficient onto the drag vs backlight angle curve of fastback geometries.

This paper provides a published counterpart to the address of the same title at the 2010 SAE World Congress. A vehicle on the road encounters an unsteady flow due to turbulence in the natural wind, due to the unsteady wakes of other vehicles and as a result of traversing through the stationary wakes of road side obstacles. This last term is of greatest significance. Various works related to the characterization, simulation and effects of on-road turbulence are compared together on the turbulence spectrum to highlight differences and similarities. The different works involve different geometries and different approaches to simulating cross wind transients but together these works provide guidance on the most important aspects of the unsteadiness. On-road transients include a range of length scales spanning several orders of magnitude but the most important scales are in the in the 2-20 vehicle length range.

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.