Numerical Implementation of Detached-Eddy Simulation on a Passenger Vehicle and Some Experimental Correlation

This study presents an implementation of delayed detached-eddy simulation (DDES) on a full-scale passenger vehicle for three configurations with the use of commercial software harpoon (mesher) and ansys fluent (solver). The methodology aims to simulate the flow accurately around complex geometries at relevantly high Re numbers for use in industrial applications, within an acceptable computational time. Geometric differences between the three configurations ensure significant drag changes that have a strong effect on the wake formation behind the vehicle. Therefore, this paper focuses on the analysis of the base wake region. At first, the paper evaluates the performance of the DDES, where it verifies the different operating conditions of the flow around the vehicle with respect to the DDES definition. In a second step, the numerical results are correlated with force measurements and time-averaged flow field investigations, conducted in the Volvo Cars aerodynamic wind tunnel (WT). The comparison confirms a good agreement between the experiments and the simulations. The resolved flow scales obtained by DDES give a further insight into differences in the wake flow characteristics between the configurations related to their contribution to drag.