CFD Soiling Simulations of Two Towing Mini Vans

Autonomous vehicles are a current reality nowadays, although some engineering developments are still ongoing. One of the most critical points for those vehicles to keep their best performance is the position where sensors should be placed. Autonomous vehicles rely on sensors performance to avoid collision with other vehicles or objects, let the vehicle to follow the road trajectory by identifying straight lines, curves and the distance with other vehicles and also controlling the velocity, acceleration and braking operations. Events such as dust, water or incorrect positioning of the sensors may lead the autonomous vehicle to fail on previous reported tasks and might cause accidents or wrong operation. With the help of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) softwares, it is possible to mitigate this issue and investigate the contamination in terms of water and dust caused by another vehicle referred as soiling effect. This work aims to perform CFD simulations in order to evaluate the soiling effect of two mini-vans and evaluate the contamination caused by particles being released from the front mini-van to the rear min-van. The particle trajectory and the impingement regions are evaluated and illustrated in order to provide a map for correct sensor position or adding cleaning points.