Aerodynamic Analysis of Drag Reduction Devices on the Simplified Body for Tractor and Trailer by Using CFD

Nowadays, the demand of using fossil fuels has been increased all around the world. The most important issue in the automotive industry is the reduction of fuel consumption of vehicles. Because of this reason, development of more fuel efficient vehicles has been emerged. Most of the company’s focus on the aerodynamic analysis and modifications of truck body, while trailer aerodynamics has been pushed a side. In this study further research on the trailer aerodynamics modifications for drag reduction is conducted. Different aerodynamic truck modifications and trailer devices such as Deflector, Gap Fairing, Vortex Stabilizer, Frame Extension, and Teardrop have been employed. Computational fluid dynamics theories have been used to investigate the effects of the aforementioned modifications on flow structures around the truck and trailer. In this study speed of 90 km/h, used with 0o yaw angle for the simplified truck and trailer to compute the aerodynamic drag for each combination of the devices to determine the optimum drag coefficient. The results revealed that the combination of the deflector and the Frame Extension have shown the maximum drag reduction. The gap between truck-trailer and the rear of the trailer are the most susceptible area to reduce aerodynamic drag. Therefore, these two devices have been implemented to understand the effect of these two regions. Furthermore, in this study the significance of employing the truck modifications and trailer devices for aerodynamics improvement have been presented. Reducing gap area between truck-trailer, and base treatment of trailer has been employed to reduce drag, for instance. In this Study key findings are reduction of drag up to 39% with top fillet edge on truck and 42% reduction in aerodynamic drag with use of Deflector for truck and Frame extension for trailer. It is suggested for the future works to reduce the aerodynamic drag with additional simulation to compare the other combination of devices together. Keywords: ANSYS-CFX®, Trailer devices, Aerodynamics, CFD, Truck, drag reduction.