Flow-Mock Up

Flow-Mock Up: Feasibility and Method Analysis of the Flow Field Reproduction of an Open Cabriolet Vehicle in order to Subjectively Assess Draught Phenomena

Gabrielse, B.C.

Gerritsma, M.I. (mentor)

Aerospace Engineering

Aerodynamics, Wind Energy & Propulsion

2017-03-08

In the automotive industry the development process is driven by a highly competitive market, calling for shorter and more cost-efficient development procedures. Computer aided engineering (CAE) is one possibility to achieve these reductions and becomes an inevitable tool in the development process. However, CAE does not provide the subjective evaluation, which still have to be conducted. In the development of the thermal comfort of open cabriolets, the subjective evaluation is dependent on expensive experimental methods and can only be conducted in a late phase of the development process, at which freedom of decision is low. Especially the thermal comfort in open cabriolets is very challenging as the passengers are surrounded by a turbulent flow field, exposing the passengers to velocities up to 40% of the driving speed. This leaves room for optimization, which is why the idea of a flow mock-up is investigated. The procedure of a flow mock-up is a combination of digital development and physical simulation. A flow mock-up should simulate the flow field inside a passenger compartment of an open cabriolet from the results obtained from CFD simulations. The research objective is to concretise the idea of a flow mock-up by identifying the requirements a flow mock-up has to fulfil in order to be advantageous for the development process as well as to be able to replicate the flow field of an open cabriolet. This is done by analysing the actual development process and proposing a modified development process, which includes the use of a flow mock-up. Furthermore, the characteristic factors, which influence the human perception while driving an open cabriolet, are identified from researches found in literature and analysis of measurement data. Finally, to investigate the technical practicability of a flow mock-up, a preliminary CFD investigation is conducted to investigate the possibility of replicating the flow field, which is present inside the passenger compartment of an open cabriolet. The flow field simulation should be replicated in a closed space and without the dependency on the vehicle geometry.

CFD
Cabriolet
Thermal Comfort
Simulator
Flow Mock-Up
Program StarCCM+

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:09dd8ba2-303b-470c-8a8e-4eeac2c44200

2021-12-31

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2017 Gabrielse, B.C.