Effect of Vehicle Geometry on Drag Coefficient

摘要

To save the energy and to protect the Global environment, fuel consumption reduction is a primary concern of the modern car manufacturers. Drag reduction is essential for reducing the fuel consumption. Designing a vehicle with a minimized Drag resistance provides economical and performance advantages. Decreased resistance to forward motion allows higher speed for the same power output, or lower power output for the same speed. The shape is an important factor for drag reduction. To design an efficient shape of the car that will offer a low resistance to the forward motion, the most important functional requirement today is the low fuel consumption. The resistance, termed as the drag force (or the drag coefficient in non dimensional terms), is a strong function of the shape of the car. This suggests it is important how the fluid particles move about the car and how fast they move along their path.