Numerical investigation of the influence of side winds on a simplified car at various yaw angles

Paper in proceeding, 2010

The flow around a generic passenger car under the influence of crosswind was predicted using large eddy simulation (LES). The Reynolds number based on the incoming velocity the car's length, L used was Re = 9 × 10 5. Yaw angles of crosswind of 10°, 20° and 30° were studied and the LES results were compared with the experimental observations and previous Reynolds-averaged Naviers-Stokes (RANS) and detached eddy simulations (DES). The present LES were found to predict flows in better agreement with the experimental observations than previous RANS and DES. This shows that LES is better suited than RANS or DES for moderate Reynolds number flows around scale-model car in crosswinds which are inherently unsteady with regions of massive separations.