The Effect of Afterbody Geometry on Passenger Vehicles in Platoon

Hesham Ebrahim and Robert Dominy
Additional contact information
Hesham Ebrahim: RWDI, Milton Keynes MK11 3LH, UK
Robert Dominy: Mechanical and Construction Engineering, Northumbria University, Newcastle Upon Tyne NE1 8ST, UK

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 22, 1-12

Abstract: It is well known that platoons of closely spaced passenger cars can reduce their aerodynamic drag yielding substantial savings in energy consumption and reduced emissions as a system. Most published research has focused on platoons of identical vehicles which can arguably be justified by some evidence that geometric variety has little to no effect on the overall flow characteristics in platoons of three vehicles or more. It is known that much of the aerodynamic benefit from platooning is gained by the leading two cars, so operating as vehicle pairs could potentially achieve similar environmental benefits whilst addressing many of the practical challenges associated with the safe operation of long platoons on public roads. However, it has been reported that unlike long platoons, the effect of geometry and arrangement is critical if the drag reduction of a pair is to be optimised. This paper describes a parametric study based on three geometric variants of the popular DrivAer model with different combinations and spacings. It is confirmed that vehicle geometry crucially affects the results with the best combinations matching those of long platoons and others creating a net drag increase.

Keywords: DrivAer model; platoon aerodynamics; platoons; bluff body aerodynamics; vehicles in convoy; drag reduction; electric vehicles aerodynamics; aerodynamics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/22/7553/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/22/7553/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:22:p:7553-:d:677473

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().