Effect of Fender Coverage Angle on the Aerodynamic Drag of a Bicycle

2019-01-5086

10/11/2019

Features
Event
Automotive Technical Papers
Authors Abstract
Content
While riding cycles, cyclists usually experience an aerodynamic drag force. Over the years, there has been a global effort to reduce the aerodynamic drag of a cycle. Fenders affect the aerodynamic drag of a cycle to a large extent, and fender coverage has a pronounced effect on the same. In this article, various fender coverage angles, varying from 60° to 270°, were studied to predict the aerodynamic drag with the help of a validated CFD model in SolidWorks Flow Simulation. The model was based on the Favre-Averaged Navier-Stokes (FANS) equations solved using the k-ɛ model. It was predicted that aerodynamic drag coefficient reduced fender coverage angle up to 135°, and thereafter started increasing. Analyses were carried out at velocities of 6 m/s, 8 m/s and 10 m/s and the results were found to be similar, with a minimum aerodynamic drag coefficient at 135° occurring in all the cases under study. There was an observed optimum decrease in drag coefficient to the extent of 4.6%, 4.5% and 4.6% as compared to the bicycle without fenders for the 6 m/s, 8 m/s and 10 m/s cases, respectively.
Meta TagsDetails
DOI
https://doi.org/10.4271/2019-01-5086
Pages
9
Citation
Kashyap, V., Arora, B., and Bhattacharjee, S., "Effect of Fender Coverage Angle on the Aerodynamic Drag of a Bicycle," SAE Technical Paper 2019-01-5086, 2019, https://doi.org/10.4271/2019-01-5086.
Additional Details
Publisher
Published
Oct 11, 2019
Product Code
2019-01-5086
Content Type
Technical Paper
Language
English