The Effect of Passive Base Ventilation on the Aerodynamic Drag of a Generic SUV Vehicle

Event
WCX™ 17: SAE World Congress Experience
Authors Abstract
Content
Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs) typically have a blunt rear end shape (for design and practicality), however this is not beneficial for aerodynamic drag. Drag can be reduced by a number of passive and active methods such as tapering and blowing into the base. In an effort to combine these effects and to reduce the drag of a visually square geometry slots have been introduced in the upper side and roof trailing edges of a squareback geometry, to take air from the freestream and passively injects it into the base of the vehicle to effectively create a tapered body.
This investigation has been conducted in the Loughborough University’s Large Wind Tunnel with the ¼ scale generic SUV model. The basic aerodynamic effect of a range of body tapers and straight slots have been assessed for 0° yaw. This includes force and pressure measurements for most configurations. The slots generate useful, but small, drag reductions with the best configurations giving reductions in drag coefficient (Cd) of approximately 0.01, whereas the best taper configurations reduce Cd by close to 0.035. The slots also have a tendency to modify the lift.
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DOI
https://doi.org/10.4271/2017-01-1548
Pages
13
Citation
Varney, M., Passmore, M., and Gaylard, A., "The Effect of Passive Base Ventilation on the Aerodynamic Drag of a Generic SUV Vehicle," SAE Int. J. Passeng. Cars - Mech. Syst. 10(1):345-357, 2017, https://doi.org/10.4271/2017-01-1548.
Additional Details
Publisher
Published
Mar 28, 2017
Product Code
2017-01-1548
Content Type
Journal Article
Language
English