On the drag reduction of road vehicles with trailing edge-integrated lobed mixers

Abstract

Trailing edge-integrated lobed-mixing geometries are proposed as a viable method for road vehicle aerodynamic drag reduction. Experiments are conducted on a 1/24th-scale model, representative of a Heavy Goods Vehicle, at a width-based Reynolds number of 2.8 × 105. A broad range of pitches and penetration angle values is examined, with detailed comparisons also made to high-aspect-ratio rear tapering. Changes to mean drag coefficients and wake velocities are evaluated and assessed from both the time-independent and time-dependent perspectives. Results show significant drag reductions for lower pitches at higher penetration angles, where the performance of regular tapering is found substantially degraded. The mechanisms responsible for drag reduction are identified to be reductions in the wake size and a shift in the vertical wake balance. The former is shown to be a result of the enhancement in inboard momentum close to the trailing edges through the generation of pairs of counter-rotating streamwise vortices, with the latter attributed to the downstream evolution of the vortices. Overall, these results identify such geometries to be suitable for improving vehicle drag while minimising the losses in internal space.