Aerodynamic evaluation of a commercial bus structure

Abstract This article focuses on the aerodynamics evaluation of a commercial intercity bus used on the highway. The research begins with a brief introduction to the state-of-the-art vehicle aerodynamic assessment using the iterative CFD (computational fluid dynamics) method. The second part presented the method to generate the basic CAD model of a commercial bus using the blueprint images. The boundary conditions and the discretization of computational volume are presented in the third part of this document. The aerodynamic evaluation is performed at a velocity of 33.34 m/s, highlighting the velocity distribution around the bus structure and the air pressure on the bus and road surface. For high accuracy of the simulation results, a movable road surface and a rotation zone is introduced around the wheels, according to the simulation case. After analysing the results of the original model is proposed a geometrical improvement by adding the air deflectors to the bus model. The improved bus model is simulated under the same boundary conditions as the base model. The last part of the document presents the comparison study and its conclusions.