Aerodynamic design of buses inspired by sperm whale

Arabacı S. K., Pakdemirli M.

9th International Conference on Computational Fluid Dynamics, ICCFD 2016, İstanbul, Turkey, 11 - 15 July 2016, (Full Text) identifier

  • Publication Type: Conference Paper / Full Text
  • City: İstanbul
  • Country: Turkey
  • Keywords: Aerodynamics, Computational Fluid Dynamics, Sperm whales
  • Manisa Celal Bayar University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

In this work, drag forces and drag coefficients of various bus models are investigated in CFD and wind tunnel. Reduced drag forces result in lower fuel consumptions. For new designs of buses, inspiration is taken from nature. Sperm whale shape forms are used in the analysis. The buses are drawn using UNIGRAPHICS program. The drawings are inserted into ANSYS CFD program for meshing. Drag forces and drag coefficients corresponding to the various designs are determined using Fluent (solver) and CFX (result) program. To compare with the experimental results, the experiments are carried out in a wind tunnel. Test data and CFD results are compared. Substantial reduction in drag coefficients is possible for these new geometries which are inspired from whales.