Numerical study of aerodynamic interactions in a homogeneous multi-vehicle formation

Abstract

An accurate and affordable method to study the flow features associated with vehicles in a homogeneous platooning is presented in this paper. It was found that only one pitch of a long-line periodic platoon would provide a sufficiently accurate observation of the flow interaction in the inter-vehicle region of the vehicles offering a significant reduction of the computational effort. The simulations of flow at Reynolds number of 30000 are made for a periodic platoon including slantedback Ahmed bodies with a slant angle of 25° and for four inter-vehicle distances, d∕L = 0.1, 0.3, 0.5 and 1.