EXPERIMENTAL AND NUMERICAL INVESTIGATION OF ACTIVE FLOW CONTROL ON A GENERIC TRUCK CABIN

Paper in proceeding, 2016

This work presents the achievement in drag reduction by use of Active Flow Control (AFC) on a generic bluff body. The model consists of a simplified truck cabin, characterized by sharp edge separation on top and bottom edges and pressure induced separation on the rounded vertical front corner. The pressure induced separation reproduces the flow separation occurring at the front A-pillar of a real truck. Hybrid Partially Averaged Navier-Stokes (PANS) simulations are compared with wind tunnel experiments. The Reynolds number for both simulations and experiments is Re = 5×10^5 based on the inlet velocity Uinf and the width of the model W = 0.4 m. A validation of the hybrid CFD model on two flow configurations is followed by a CFD study on the optimal actuation frequency able to minimize the aerodynamic drag. PANS accurately predicts the flow field measured in experiments and a notable drag reduction by means of AFC is observed in a numerical study.