Abstract
Large-eddy simulations and full-scale investigations were carried out that aimed to reduce the aerodynamic drag and thus the fuel consumption of truck-trailers. The computational model is a relevant generic truck-trailer combination, and the full-scale is a corresponding Volvo prototype vehicle. Passive and active flow control (AFC) approaches were adopted in this work and applied at the rear end of the trailer. Flaps were mounted at an angle that induces separation, and synthetic jet actuators were placed close to the corner of the rear end and the flaps. The drag reduction obtained is in the order of \(30\,\%\). The flow was analyzed by comparing the phase-averaged and time-averaged flow field of the unforced and the forced cases. The full-scale prototype is a Volvo truck-trailer. The trailer is mounted by three flaps at the rear sides and top end. The actuators consist of loudspeakers in sealed cavities, connected to amplifiers that are supplied with a frequency generator controlled by LabVIEW. The full-scale test includes passive and active flow control investigations by varying the flap angle, with and without AFC, investigating different frequency and slot angle configurations. The fuel flux was measured during the full-scale test. The test shows a fuel reduction of about \(4\,\%\) in a comparison of two flap angles. The test of active flow control shows a reduction of \(5.3\,\%\) compared to the corresponding unforced case. Compared with the baseline case, the passive flow control fails to reduce the total fuel consumption.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
El-Alti, M., Kjellgren, P., Davidson, L.: On the download alleviation for the XV-15 wing by active flow control using large-eddy simulation. In: ERCOFTAC Workshop: Direct and Large-Eddy Simulation, vol. 7, Trieste, Italy, 8–10 Sept 2008
Kjellgren, P., El-Alti, M., Davidson, L.: Download alleviation of a tilt-rotor wing by active flow control strategies. In: KATnet II Conference: Key Aerodynamic Technologies, Bremen, Germany, 12–14 May 2009
Kjellgren, P., Anderberg, N., Wyganski, I.: Download alleviation by periodic excitation on a typical tilt-rotor configuration—computation and experiment. In: Fluids 2000 Conference and Exhibit, Denver, CO, 19–22 June 2000
Kjellgren, P., Hassan, A., Sivasubramanian, J., Cullen, L., Cerchie D., Wyganski, I.: Download alleviation for the XV-15: computations and experiments of flows around the wing. In: Biennial International Powered Lift Conference and Exhibit, Williamsburg, Virginia, 5–7 Nov 2002
Darabi, A., Wygnanski, I.: Active management of naturally separated flow over a solid surface. part 1. The forced reattachment process. J. Fluid Mech. 510, 105–129 (2004)
Seifert, A., Stalnov, O., Sperber, D., Arwatz, G., Palei, V., David, S., Dayan, I., Fono, I.: Large trucks drag reduction using active flow control. In: The Aerodynamics of Heavy Vehicles II: Trucks, Buses and Trains (2007)
Henning, L., King, R.: Drag reduction by closed-loop control of a separated flow over a bluff body with a blunt trailing edge. In: 44th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control and European Control Conference ECC 2005, pp. 494–499, Seville, Spain (2005)
Taubert, L., Wygnanski, I.: Preliminary experiments applying active flow control to a 1/24th scale model of a semi-trailer truck. In: The Aerodynamics of Heavy Vehicles II: Trucks, Buses and Trains (2007)
Nayeri, C.N., Haff, J., Greenblatt, D., Loefdahl, L., Pashereit, C.O.: Drag reduction on a generic tractor-trailer using active flow control in combination with solid flaps. In: The Aerodynamics of Heavy Vehicles II: Trucks, Buses and Trains (2007)
Englar, R.J.: Improved pneumatic aerodynamics for drag reduction, fuel economy, safety and stability increase for heavy vehicles. In: SAE 2005 Commercial Vehicle Engineering, Congress and Exhibition, SAE Paper 2005-01-3627, Chicago, Illinois, USA (2005)
Kjellgren, P.: A semi-implicit fractional step finite element method for viscous incompressible flows. Comput. Mech. 20, 541–550 (1997)
Kjellgren, P.: An arbitrary lagrangian-eulerian finite element method. Comput. Mech. 21, 81–90 (1998)
El-Alti, M.: Active flow control for aircrafts and heavy vehicles. Thesis for licentiate of engineering no. 2009:011, Division of Fluid Dynamics, Department of Applied Mechanics, Chalmers University of Technology, Göteborg, Sweden (2009)
El-Alti, M., Kjellgren, P., Davidson, L.: Drag Reduction for trucks by active flow control of the wake behind the trailer. In: 6th International Symposium on Turbulence, Heat and Mass Transfer, Rome, Italy, 14–18 Sept 2009
Glezer, A., Amitay, M.: Synthetic jets. Ann. Rev. Fluid Mech. 34, 503–529 (2002)
El-Alti, M., Kjellgren, P., Davidson, L.: Drag reduction of trucks by active flow control of the wake behind the trailer. In: 6th International Symposium on Turbulence, Heat and Mass Transfer, Rome, Italy, 14–18 Sept 2009
AUDAX Industries. Ttieftonlautsprecher, PR 240 Z0. http://www.audax-speaker.de/ibase/module/medienarchiv/dateien/PDF-DOWNLOAD/AUDAX-PR240Z0.pdf (2009)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this paper
Cite this paper
El-Alti, M., Chernoray, V., Kjellgren, P., Hjelm, L., Davidson, L. (2016). Computations and Full-Scale Tests of Active Flow Control Applied on a VOLVO Truck-Trailer. In: Dillmann, A., Orellano, A. (eds) The Aerodynamics of Heavy Vehicles III. ECI 2010. Lecture Notes in Applied and Computational Mechanics, vol 79. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20122-1_16
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20122-1_16
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-20121-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-20122-1
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)