PANS Study of the Flow Around an Oscillating, Simplified Truck Cabin With Flow Control

This work presents an application of the Partially-Averaged Navier-Stokes equations for an external vehicle flow. In particular, the flow around a generic truck cabin is simulated. The PANS method is first validated against experiments and resolved LES on two static cases. As a consequence, PANS is used to study the effect of an active flow control (AFC) on a dynamic oscillating configuration. The oscillation of the model represents a more realistic ground vehicle flow, where gusts (of different nature) define the unsteadiness of the incoming flow. In the numerical study, the model is forced to oscillate with a yaw angle 10° > β > −10° and a non-dimensional frequency St = fW/U_inf = 0.1. The effect of the periodic motion of the model is compared with the quasi-steady flow condition. At a later stage, the dynamic configuration is actuated by means of a synthetic jet boundary condition. Overall, the effect of the actuation is beneficial. The actuation of the AFC decreases drag, stabilises the flow and reduces the size of the side recirculation bubble.