Reduced aerodynamic drag of road vehicles by better design of tyre, wheel and cooling airflow control

Research Project, 2013 – 2017

The project is mainly expected to reduce aerodynamic drag resulting from wheels and cooling flow thus achieving lower vehicle fuel consumption. The project is to develop a generic CFD method to replicate similar wheel flow fields to the ones measured in the wind tunnel. Develop an experimental procedure to quantify and measure cooling flow and cooling drag.The development process of both the computational and experimental methods will increase the knowledge in wheel aerodynamics and its effect on cooling drag. The knowledge gained and the generic methods developed will salso be utilized to investigate solutions to the increasing demand of thermal management and temperature distribution control within the engine bay.