Experimental and Numerical Analyses of a Novel Wing-in-Ground Vehicle

Abstract

The AeroCity is a new form of transportation concept that has been developed to provide high-speed ground transportation at a much lower cost than the existing high-speed railway. Utilizing the Wing-in-Ground (WIG) effect, the AeroCity vehicle does not require complex infrastructures like other contemporary concepts, such as the Hyperloop or Maglev trains. In the current work, the aerodynamic characteristics of the AeroCity vehicle are examined through a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis. The results from the CFD analysis qualitatively match with the findings of wind tunnel experiments. Surface streamlines and boundary layer measurements correspond well with the numerical data. However, the force measurements show a discrepancy. It is found that the separation bubble over the side plates is not captured by the CFD, and this is responsible for an under-prediction of the drag at higher free-stream velocities. The Transition SST model improved the matching between the experiments and numerical simulations. The influence of the moving ground is numerically investigated, and the effect of non-moving ground on the vehicle aerodynamics was found not to be significant. Finally, the inclusion of the track wall is examined. It is found that the merging of the wingtip vortices is responsible for a significant drag increase and, therefore, an alternative track geometry should be investigated.