DYNA JOURNAL ENGINEERING

Key words:

generador de vorticidad, aerodinámica, vehículo articulado pesado, experimental, tráiler, vortex generators, aerodynamic, heavy vehicle, articulated, experimental, trailer.

Article type:

ARTICULO DE INVESTIGACION / RESEARCH ARTICLE

Section:

RESEARCH ARTICLES

This article details the analysis of experimental tests regarding the behavior of some vortex generators (VGs) for heavy vehicles. The correlation between numerical and experimental tests, including road tests, smoke and water jet tests, etc. will be highlighted.
Two types of vortex generators have been tested, from which high decreases in the drag coefficient in the virtual tests by means of CFD tools were obtained. These vortex generators, are one co-rotational with blade shape VG and the other one with a complex geometry, manufactured by the Air Tab Company.
On the other hand, some new low-cost experimental tests have been planned. They do not include the use of a wind tunnel. It has also been necessary to build some functional prototypes of the VGs. It must be highlighted that the use of these types of tests stems from the need to obtain experimental test results to be compared with the numerical results. It must also be pointed out that, due to their high costs, wind tunnel tests have not been conducted to validate the numerical results. However, road test results have proved useful in obtaining the behavior and aerodynamic improvements of the VGs.

Keywords: vortex generators, aerodynamic, heavy vehicle, articulated, experimental, trailer.