A Wind Tunnel Study Correlating the Aerodynamic Effect of Cooling Flows for Full and Reduced Scale Models of a Passenger Car
Paper in proceeding, 2010

In the early stages of an aerodynamic development programme of a road vehicle it is common to use wind tunnel scale models. The obvious reasons for using scale models are that they are less costly to build and model scale wind tunnels are relatively inexpensive to operate. It is therefore desirable for model scale testing to be utilized even more than it is today. This however, requires that the scale models are highly detailed and that the results correlate with those of the full size vehicle. This paper presents a correlation study that was carried out in the Chalmers and Volvo Car Aerodynamic Wind Tunnels. The aim of the study was to investigate how successfully a correlation of the cooling air flow between a detailed scale model and a real full size vehicle could be achieved. Results show limited correlation on absolute global aerodynamic loads, but relative good correlation in drag and lift increments. Furthermore, changes in local surface pressure on the underbody and base are in good agreement.

Author

Lasse Malmkjaer Christoffersen

Chalmers, Applied Mechanics, Vehicle Safety

Christoffer Landström

Chalmers, Applied Mechanics, Vehicle Engineering and Autonomous Systems

Tim Walker

Volvo Cars

SAE 2010 World Congress and Exhibition; Detroit, MI; United States; 13 April 2010 through 13 April 2010

Subject Categories

Mechanical Engineering

DOI

10.4271/2010-01-0759

More information

Latest update

1/25/2022