An Investigation of Aerodynamic Improvement on Truck’s Forebody

An overview of aerodynamics of heavy-duty vehicles is the main focus of this paper. To be more specific, drag reduction systems, implementation of which can noticeably decrease fuel consumption of a truck, thus improving its efficiency. To do that, several different deflector designs were created. To evaluate them, multiple simulations of the flow field acting on a truck were made with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) techniques. The simulations are based on steady-state formula, and their purpose is to evaluate aerodynamic properties of trucks. All the important characteristics and aerodynamic variables were determined by using TRIZ method. The resulting data clearly showed that curtain deflector designs can decrease drag coefficient and fuel consumption by as much as 0.02 and 0.83 liters respectively. It was proven that the solid basis can be established for future aerodynamic enhancements and their numerical and experimental evaluations.