Fabrication of an in-plane SU-8 cantilever with integrated strain gauge for wall shear stress measurements in fluid flows.

We present a cantilever fabricated from the polymer SU-8 for the measurement of wall shear stress in fluid flows. The pressure induced deflection of the cantilever, measured using a calibrated and integrated nichrome strain gauge, can be related to the wall shear stress on the surface. The initial degree of curvature of the cantilever can be controlled via the exposure dose, which allows a small positive deflection to be achieved, and so minimises the intrusion into the flow. Wind tunnel testing results show a sensitivity greater than 2.5 mV/Pa, with a shear stress of 0.38 Pa and excitation of 1 V

An Active Turbulence Generation System for the Simulation of Aerodynamic Transients in a Model Wind Tunnel

This paper outlines the creation and validation of an active turbulence generation system (TGS) for the simulation of wind and vehicle-induced transients in a model scale, ¾ open jet, wind tunnel

The Bandwidth of Transient Yaw Effects on Vehicle Aerodynamics

A vehicle on the road encounters an unsteady flow due to turbulence in the natural wind, the unsteady wakes from other vehicles and as a result of traversing through the stationary wakes of road side obstacles. There is increasing concern about potential differences in aerodynamic behaviour measured in steady flow wind tunnel conditions and that which occurs for vehicles on the road. It is possible to introduce turbulence into the wind tunnel environment (e.g. by developing active turbulence generators) but on-road turbulence is wide ranging in terms of both its intensity and frequency and it would be beneficial to better understand what aspects of the turbulence are of greatest importance to the aerodynamic performance of vehicles. There has been significant recent work on the characterisation of turbulent airflow relevant to road vehicles. The simulation of this time-varying airflow is now becoming possible in wind tunnels and in CFD. Less is known about the range of turbulence length scales and intensities that are significant to the performance of vehicles. It is only necessary to simulate (experimentally or computationally) the Venn intersection of the range of conditions experienced and the range that are important to the vehicle's performance. The focus of this work is on transient yaw fluctuations. Time-resolved simulations of simple two dimensional parametric geometries subjected to yaw transients at a range of different time scales were conducted using Exa Powerflow. The effects of model geometry, Reynolds number yaw fluctuation amplitude and superposition were investigated. It was found that, in general, the flow could be treated as quasi-steady for reduced frequencies below 0.3 (based on model length and freestream velocity), which is consistent with theory. The most significant changes were observed in a critical reduced frequency range between ω R = 0.3 and ω R = 1.5 (scales of 4-20 vehicle lengths, or periods of 0.6 to 3s for a vehicle at 30 m/s). Higher frequencies will have significant effects, but these were observed to show little sensitivity to frequency above the critical range. Small physical features on real vehicles will add importance to smaller, but not larger, scales. The dynamic effects were largely independent of Reynolds number, including for near-inviscid conditions, indicating that the sources of the non-quasi-steady response were not viscous in origin. Increasing yaw amplitude or combining multiple frequency components did not have a summative impact suggesting that it may not be possible to describe vehicle response to transient conditions using linear concepts such as transfer or admittance functions

Cross Winds and Transients: Reality, Simulation and Effects

This paper provides a published counterpart to the address of the same title at the 2010 SAE World Congress. A vehicle on the road encounters an unsteady flow due to turbulence in the natural wind, due to the unsteady wakes of other vehicles and as a result of traversing through the stationary wakes of road side obstacles. This last term is of greatest significance. Various works related to the characterization, simulation and effects of on-road turbulence are compared together on the turbulence spectrum to highlight differences and similarities. The different works involve different geometries and different approaches to simulating cross wind transients but together these works provide guidance on the most important aspects of the unsteadiness. On-road transients include a range of length scales spanning several orders of magnitude but the most important scales are in the in the 2-20 vehicle length range. There are significant levels of unsteadiness experienced on-road in this region and the corresponding frequencies are high enough that a dynamic test is required to correctly determine the vehicle response. Fluctuations at these scales generate significant unsteady loads (aerodynamic admittance typically 0.6-1.4) and the corresponding frequencies can adversely affect vehicle dynamics. The generation of scales larger than the scale of the vehicle is impractical with passive grids and so active turbulence generation systems are preferred. These can be classified into lift and drag-based devices. Lift-based devices provide better control of the turbulence but can only just reproduce the smaller scales in the 2-20 vehicle length range. Different moving model approaches are also discussed. CFD offers real advantages through its ability to allow arbitrary time-varying boundary conditions

Effects of On-Road Turbulence on Vehicle Surface Pressures in the A-Pillar Region

There is increasing concern about potential differences in aerodynamic behavior measured in steady flow wind tunnel conditions and that which occurs for vehicles on the road. As tools become available for better simulation of on road conditions there is a growing practical value in understanding what range of conditions are important to simulate. Surface pressures measured on the sideglass of a European hatchback vehicle in the MIRA full scale wind tunnel are compared with those measured on-road. The on-road data corresponds to relatively calm, low yaw conditions and the time averaged pressure distributions on-road and in the wind tunnel at zero yaw were very similar. Variations in instantaneous aerodynamic yaw angle produces fluctuations in surface pressures but the sensitivity of instantaneous pressures to yaw angle was lower for the on-road measurements compared with steady state wind tunnel tests. Also, surface pressure unsteadiness was larger than could be attributed to yaw angle fluctuations alone. The response of instantaneous surface pressures to yaw angle fluctuations is reduced for higher frequency fluctuations as small scale turbulence gusts are less able to modify the flow over the entire vehicle. Examination of the spectral relationship between surface pressure and yaw angle indicates that the impact of yaw angle fluctuations is reduced by a factor of 2 for reduced frequencies above unity

Links between Notchback Geometry, Aerodynamic Drag, Flow Asymmetry and Unsteady Wake Structure

The rear end geometry of road vehicles has a significant impact on aerodynamic drag and hence on energy consumption. Notchback (sedan) geometries can produce a particularly complex flow structure which can include substantial flow asymmetry. However, the interrelation between rear end geometry, flow asymmetry and aerodynamic drag has lacked previous published systematic investigation. This work examines notchback flows using a family of 16 parametric idealized models. A range of techniques are employed including surface flow visualization, force measurement, multi-hole probe measurements in the wake, PIV over the backlight and trunk deck and CFD. It is shown that, for the range of notchback geometries investigated here, a simple offset applied to the effective backlight angle can collapse the drag coefficient onto the drag vs backlight angle curve of fastback geometries. This is because even small notch depth angles are important for a sharp-edged body but substantially increasing the notch depth had little further impact on drag. This work shows that asymmetry originates in the region on the backlight and trunk deck and occurs progressively with increasing notch depth, provided that the flow reattaches on the trunk deck and that the effective backlight angle is several degrees below its crucial value for non-reattachment. A tentative mapping of the flow structures to be expected for different geometries is presented. CFD made it possible to identify a link between flow asymmetry and unsteadiness. Unsteadiness levels and principal frequencies in the wake were found to be similar to those for high-drag fastback geometries. The shedding of unsteady transverse vortices from the backlight recirculation region has been observed