Aerodynamics Overview of the Ground Transportation Systems (GTS) Project for Heavy Vehicle Drag Reduction

The focus of the research was to investigate the fundamental aerodynamics of the base flow of a tractor trailer that would prove useful in fluid flow management Initially, industry design needs and constraints were defined This was followed by an evaluation of state-of-the-art Navier-Stokes based computational fluid dynamics tools Analytical methods were then used in combination with computational tools in a design process Several geometries were tested at 1 8 scale in a low speed wind tunnel in addition to the baseline geometry, base add-on devices of the class of ogival boattails and slants were analyzed