Influence of Wheel Width on Vehicle Aerodynamic Drag

Abstract:

The computational fluid dynamics method was applied to an investigation of the influence of wheel width on vehicle aerodynamic performance for a general sedan car. After a comprehensive analysis and comparison of the changes in flow structure of isolated wheels and full scaled vehicle models with different wheel widths, the conclusion can be drown that the aerodynamic drag of isolated wheel decreases approximately by 9.2% while the aerodynamic drag of whole car model decreases by about 2% when the wheel width reduces by every 5%. This is due to the reason that the reduction of wheel width can effectively decrease the flow separation beside the wheel and then the vortex zone in the wake, besides, it can also lower the turbulence intensity in the rear ended area of the isolated wheel as well as the whole car model, which will help to reduce aerodynamic drag of the given models.

Key words:automobile; wheel width; aerodynamic drag; numerical simulation