Review on research paper Effect of Vortex generators

on Aerodynamics of
a Car: CFD Analysis

Submited By

INTRODUCTION
Author begins the paper by introducing the need for reduction in the
fuel consumption as the primary concern of the automotive
development ,which further helps in protecting the environment ,
among the various processes to reduce fuel consumption , reducing
the drag is an essential process which can achieved by a number of
methods and this paper deals with one such method in depth.
Reduction of drag also improves the performance of the vehicle.
Before the publication of this paper (april 2013), there have been a
number of papers published which aimed at reduction of drag , few of
them are listed below.
An experimental study of interceptors for drag reduction
published on June,2011.
Computational and experimental investigation on aerodynamics
flow around sports utility vehicles -published on September, 2012.
Computational simulation of model and full scale class 8 trucks with
drag reduction devices - published on feb, 2011.
Innovative concept for car drag reduction A parametric analysis of
aerodynamic force on a simplified body- published on AugSep,2012.
The uniqueness of this paper lies in the fact that author aimed at the
reduction of drag for passenger cars which have a number of
restrictions in their design these restrictions are described in the
introduction section of the paper . the paper is subdivided into 7 parts
which are well interconnected. A number of figures and graphs are
used in the paper which have been well explained by the author in the
following texts of these graphs and figures.

Brief outline of the paper

The paper consists of seven subparts, which are as follow:
1) INTRODUCTION
This part provides the introduction to the topic and the necessity of this topic in
automotive development. This section also contains the basic theory theory
used in the paper and the method employed in the paper to get the results .
2) FLOW SEPERATION MECHANISM OF VORTEX

GENERATORS.
This part explains the realtionship between height of car at rear end with the
velocity drop and pressure change , Schematic of velocity around the rear end
is provided (which provides a clear idea of change in momentum with pressure
gradient within the boundry layer) , Further the correct position for placing the
vortex generator is explained for reducing the drag. The phenomena of drag
reduction due to increased back pressure is also explained in this section , Since
the Vortex Generators itself produces the drag. So the total effect is calculated
by subtracting the drag produced by itself from the reduction in drag.

3) OPTIMUM VORTEX GENERATORS

This part contains the assumptions made regarding the optimum height of a
vortex generator. Shape of the VG selected for the analysis is a bump-shaped
piece with a rear slope angle of 27.This section further contains the study
conducted to check the assumptions made regarding the height of VG , No
study is conducted to check the assumption made for the rear slope angle. The
effect of increasing the height of VG on drag is explained based on the
experimental results.

4) CFD ANALYSIS OF SIDE CONTOUR OF A CAR

This section explains the advantages of use of CFD tools to analyse
aerodynamic parameters and resultant turbulences , author has used GAMBIT
as a pre-processor for the modeling and FLUENT as a solver and postprocessor.
FVM method (FVM is an integral method based on the integration of the
conservative form of transport equations by finite volumes which are
discretizing the area of analysis has been ) has been used in CFD analysis. This

section of paper further explains the process of solving the equations obtained
after applying the boundary conditions.

5) DISCRITIZATION USING FINITE VOLUME METHOD

(FVM)
This section explains the differences between FVM method and general finite
diffrential method , type of mesh used is mentioned (i.e quadrilateral mesh)
.Further the scale used for the models used in this paper is 1:22 and the rear
slope angles for hatchback model is 50 deg to 25 deg , for the sedan model there
is steeped read end body profile.

6) BOUNDARY CONDITIONS
This section contains the boundary conditions which were used in
GAMBIT :Velocity of the air at the inlet is considered to be 27.7
m/s (100 km/h) and with a temperature of 300 K. The boundary
condition at the outlet is considered to be pressure outlet with a
gauge pressure of 0 Pa. The boundary condition for the car
contour and top and bottom of the virtual wind tunnel is
considered as wall boundary condition. The density of air is set
as 1.225 kg/(m^3) and viscosity of air is 1.7894 X (10^-5)kg/
(ms). To get the accurate results within the identical conditions,
mesh is discretized with same density in both cases of the
geometry . The CFD analysis for the turbulent flow is carried
out considering k e model.

7) RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

This section contains the results obtained by the study conducted and
its in-depth discussion.
The meshed geometry is analyzed in FLUENT by applying the
specified boundary conditions and the variation of the flow
parameters are plotted and studied. The variation of static
pressure over the car geometry is shown below.

The variation of static pressure contours for the Sedan

model over the rear end of the roof is shown below with
Vortex Generator and (b) without Vortex Generator

Flow field near the flow separation point for Sedan model in the form
of velocity vectors is shown in Figure 9 (a),(c) without VG and (b),
(d) with VG. Similarly velocity field distribution is shown in Figure
10 (a) with VG and (b)
without VG.

9(a)
9(b)

10(a)
10(b)

Pathlines and velocity vectors over a Sedan model (a), (c) without
Vortex Generator (b), (d) with Vortex Generator are shown below.

The static pressure distribution over the Hatchback car is presented in

Figure 11 (a) without VG and (b) with VG

11(a)

11(b)

Figure 12. Velocity distribution over hatchback (a) with Vortex

Generator (b) without Vortex Generator

12(a)

12(b)

In the case of Hatchback model the change in the value of drag coefficient
(i.e.change in drag coeff= 0.008) and lift coefficient(i.e.change in lift coeff=
0.046) is observed.
In the case of sedan model the change in the value of drag coefficient (i.e.
change in drag coeff = 0.009) and lift coefficient (i.e. change in lift coeff =
0.042) is observed.

8) CONCLUSION
This section contains the conclusions derived from the study conducted ,which
is that Vortex Generators increases the pressure at the vehicles entire rear
surface and hence decreasing the drag and increasing the downforce. Because of
these advantages Vortex Generators are suggested to be used in commercial
applications of passenger vehicles like Sedan and Hatchback model cars.

CONCLUSION OF THE REVIEW

This paper in unique due to fact that is based on reduction of drag for
passenger cars the methods and techniques used in the paper are well

explained by the author and the paper is written in a very systematic

way , by dividing the entire study into parts author has simplified the
concepts used and proper explanation is provided for every method
that has been used . Most of the assumptions are provided with the
experimental data so as to explain the reason behind using them.
Sufficient graphs and figures are used which makes the entire material
very easy to understand for the readers. By conducting this research
the author has proved the need of vortex generators in passenger cars.