Computational Simulation of Heavy Trucks

Kidambi Sreenivas, D. Stephen Nichols, Daniel G. Hyams, Brent Mitchell, Shane Sawyer, Lafayette K. Taylor and David L. Whitfield
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Chattanooga, Tennessee, 37403

Aerodynamic simulations were carried out for the Generic Conventional Model, a 1/8th scale tractor-trailer model, that was tested in the NASA Ames 7’x10’ tunnel. The computed forces and pressure coefficients are compared to experiment for the zero as well as the ten degree yaw cases. DES versions of the one-equation Menter SAS and the two-equation hybrid turbulence model are used in the simulations. Significant unsteadiness is observed in the zero degree case which prevented a symmetry plane option from being used. Overall forces as well as pressure distributions matched well for the zero degree case. For the ten degree case, the forces were in reasonable agreement while the pressure distributions indicated a need for tighter grid resolution as well as possibly advanced turbulence models.