Refine Your Search

Search Results

Viewing 1 of 1
Technical Paper

Determining Blockage Corrections in Climatic Wind Tunnels Using CFD

2003-03-03
2003-01-0936
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) was applied to investigate blockage effects (or velocity correction) in a climatic wind tunnel (CWT) test environment. Different blockage effects in the CWT were modeled using four simplified vehicles that approximated a sedan, an SUV, a pickup truck, and a minivan. Blockage dependence on nozzle size and spacing between the nozzle exit plane (NEP) and the vehicle were also investigated. The study quantified the blockage effect using different correction methods based on vehicle frontal velocity profiles and upper surface pressure traces. The blockage-free solution was also simulated for each vehicle in an ‘open road’ or free air condition. The CFD study revealed that all the test cases resulted in blockage correction factors, defined by Vactual/Vsimulated greater than 1.0. This is a condition in which the uncorrected wind tunnel velocity was higher than the ‘open road’ condition.
X