A Fluid-Structure- Interaction based Methodology to Evaluate Aero-Thermal Performance of Deformable Air Guides

The present work demonstrates a Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) based methodology that couples a Finite Volume Method (FVM) and Finite Element Method (FEM) based tools to estimate air guide deformation, thereby predicting accurate aerothermal performance. The method starts with a digital assembly step where the assembly shape and the induced stress due to assembly is predicted. A full vehicle Aerodynamic simulation is performed to extract the surface pressure on the air guide which is then used to estimate the extent of deformation of the air guides. Based on the extent a subsequent Aerodynamic simulation may be carried out to predict thermal efficiency.

Comparison against pressure data and deflection data extracted from the wind tunnel experiments of vehicles has shown reasonable match demonstrating the accuracy and usefulness of the method.