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Investigation of drag reduction performance of half NACA 0009 and 0012 airfoils placed over a trailer on the flow around truck-trailer

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Abstract

The drag reduction performance of a half airfoil attached to a trailer and the roof fairing at different positions was experimentally investigated in a wind tunnel. Half airfoils have NACA 0009 and NACA 0012 cross-section and the roof fairing position is changed from −4.5 mm to +4.5 mm. Smoke wire and surface oil flow visualization were also performed to elucidate the flow characteristic around the truck-trailer with drag reduction devices. While the drag reduction rate of the truck trailer with half airfoil is up to 10 % higher than that of alone truck-trailer at all Reynolds number ranges, drag reduction of the truck trailer with the half airfoil and the roof fairing was exceeded 30 % as compared to the alone truck trailer. Drag coefficient results indicated that the half NACA 0009 and NACA 0012 airfoil has an almost similar trend at the zero-roof fairing position. Laminar separation bubble formation was observed on the surface of roof fairing with the help of surface oil flow visualization.

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Abbreviations

A :

Frontal area of the truck-trailer

C D :

Drag coefficient

C D_ATT :

Drag coefficient of the alone truck-trailer

CRF :

Cab roof fairing

DC :

Direct current

DR :

Drag reduction rate

F D :

Drag force

ρ :

Density of the air

LSB :

Laminar separation bubble

Re :

Reynolds number

RF :

Roof fairing

V :

Free stream velocity

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support of this work by the Scientific Research Projects Unit of Karadeniz Technical University with the contract number of 2007.112.003.2. The authors are grateful to Prof. Dr. Yahya Erkan Akansu for allowing the use of wind tunnel located at Mechanical Engineering Department of Niğde Omer Halisdemir University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Karadeniz Technical University, Trabzon, 61080, Turkey

    Mehmet Seyhan & Mustafa Sarioglu

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  1. Mehmet Seyhan
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  2. Mustafa Sarioglu
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Correspondence to Mehmet Seyhan.

Additional information

Mehmet Seyhan received his B.Sc. degree and M.Sc. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Niğde University in 2013 and 2015, respectively. He is currently a Ph.D. student at Karadeniz Technical University, where he also works as research assistant. His research interests include plasma actuators for flow control, PEM fuel cells and flow control applications.

Mustafa Sarioglu is a Mechanical Engineer. He graduated from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, the Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Karadeniz University in 1984. He received his M.Sc. degree and Ph.D. degree from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, the Faculty of Engineering, Karadeniz Technical University in 1991 and 1997, respectively. His research interests include passive flow control. He is currently an Associated Professor in Mechanical Engineering Department of Karadeniz Technical University.

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Seyhan, M., Sarioglu, M. Investigation of drag reduction performance of half NACA 0009 and 0012 airfoils placed over a trailer on the flow around truck-trailer. J Mech Sci Technol 35, 2971–2979 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12206-021-0620-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12206-021-0620-2

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