Investigation of vehicle ride height and wheel position influence on the aerodynamic forces of ground vehicles

Paper in proceeding, 2014

To prevent test vehicles from movement during experiments in modernaerodynamic wind tunnels, fastening struts are typically used for a rigid connection between the model and the force balance underneath the wind tunnel floor. A weakness of this experimental set-up is that such struts limit the vertical movement of the vehicle. By analysing experimental data from the Volvo Cars wind tunnel and corresponding CFD simulations the differences in measurements using struts with and without vertical displacement have been analysed and compared. The model used was a Volvo S60.