This paper presents results obtained from a numerical investigation of various configurations of gap clearances for a truck model equipped with boat-tails. ANSYS FLUENT V14.5 was used to examine the flow around the vehicle and to obtain the drag coefficient reductions at a range of yaw angles of 0° to 20°. The vehicle had a streamlined front end and was scaled to 12% of a full size truck with no tractor-trailer gap modeled. The computational domain was calculated at Reynolds number of approximately 8 x 105. The numerical data obtained from the investigation yielded a best configuration of the boat-tail which produced maximum of 10% drag reduction at 0° yaw angle when compared to the baseline model. The optimum boat-tail angles are also determined to be in the range of 15° to 20° for both 0° and 10° yaw angles.
展开▼
