Ebrahim, Hesham, Dominy, Robert and Martin, Nick (2021) Aerodynamics of electric cars in platoon SAGE publications. Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part D: Journal of Automobile Engineering, 235 (5). pp. 1396-1408. ISSN 0954-4070
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Abstract
The potential aerodynamic benefits of operating full-scale electric vehicles in platoons of 2 and 3 vehicles have been investigated. Since drag reduction has a direct impact on vehicle range, power consumption was measured directly and surface pressure measurements were made to characterise the changes in pressure field that influence the power required to overcome aerodynamic drag. CFD simulations were validated against the track measurements to assess the limitations of using a practical, limited number of pressure tappings to measure drag. The overall power consumption for the whole platoon was found to reduce proportionally with the reduction of vehicle spacing and it was also observed that increasing the number of vehicles in the platoon from 2 to 3 further increased the power savings from 33.4% to 39.1%. These power savings were attributed primarily to changes in surface pressure acting on the base of the leading vehicle and the forebody of the trailing vehicle.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Additional Information: | Funding information: The authors would like to acknowledge the support of Nissan Technical Centre Europe for providing the vehicles, test facilities and staff support to conduct these investigations. The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | Platoon aerodynamics, bluff body aerodynamics, drag reduction, platoons, track investigations |
| Subjects: | H300 Mechanical Engineering |
| Department: | Faculties > Engineering and Environment > Mechanical and Construction Engineering |
| Depositing User: | Elena Carlaw |
| Date Deposited: | 15 Apr 2021 09:54 |
| Last Modified: | 03 Sep 2021 08:31 |
| URI: | http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/45926 |
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