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Study of Fluid Structure Interaction due to Water Splashing 2015-01-0673

on the Rear Fender of Motorcycles Published 04/14/2015

Rohit Ray and Nagarjun Jawahar

Hero MotoCorp Limited

CITATION: Ray, R. and Jawahar, N., "Study of Fluid Structure Interaction due to Water Splashing on the Rear Fender of Motorcycles,"
SAE Technical Paper 2015-01-0673, 2015, doi:10.4271/2015-01-0673.

Copyright © 2015 SAE International

Abstract
Automotive OEM's are looking to develop plastic parts with
maximum life and durability through virtual simulations with help of
CAE tools, thereby saving the mold cost, material cost and time. The
design constrains would be manufacturability, loads, boundary
condition and aesthetics. This work involves the multi-discipline
approach to virtually visualize the effect of fluid structure interaction
due to splashing on the rear fender of a motorcycle which acts as mud
guard. This study shows effect of splashing of water over rear fender
on wet roads. First, the pressure developed on the rear fender due to
impingement of water on surface is obtained through a multiphase
volume of fluid analysis using CFD software Fluent. Secondly, these
pressure values are taken as input in Abaqus software and the part is
analyzed for its durability. The main focus was to check the change in
pressure value and stress levels in rear fender by varying the Figure 1. Water Splashing during a Rainy day on a flooded road
following parameters; level of water, splash angle and tire width
Water splashing is the phenomenon observed when the vehicle travels
while splashing. The hot spot locations and change in behavior of
through wet roads or a dam of water. It refers to the displacement and
rear fender due to change in parameters were taken in account for
spray pattern of water observed due to the interaction of the tire with
optimization of the current design and would be considered as design
water. The rotational movement of the tire displaces the water
constrains in future.
sideways as well as drags and propels water along its tangential
direction. When propelled, the water usually is in the form of large
Introduction chunks held together by surface tension forces and propelling with
the circumferential velocity of the tire. The splash observed is
Water splashing is one of the road safety hazards concerned with
generally in the form of a central jet of water being projected
every automobile user on the road, irrespective of the segment of
tangentially from the tire. This jet breaks down into smaller droplets
automobile. Water splash and spray, mixed with dust and guided by
of water; either after hitting a physical part or else due to the eventual
vehicle's downstream aerodynamic flow reduce visibility for other
shearing and breakup of the thin water sheets attached to the jet. This
vehicles on the road, cause pedestrian discomfort and when not
eventual breakup of water sheets into droplets is based on the
contained properly, the backsplash can even affect the rider and the
parameters such as Weber number. The development of a liquid sheet
pillion, especially in case of two wheelers as shown in figure 1.
into a droplet field is governed by the fluid properties and initial
velocity of the flow. Taking the tire groove width and initial velocity
The presence of such problem creates the need to understand the
of water as parameters, the calculated Weber number gives us an idea
phenomenon of water splashing for two wheelers. A product which
of the characteristics of splash being observed.
performs better in these situations will enhance rider comfortability.
To control splash, motorcycles are provided with fenders which when
placed concentric to the tire, acts as an obstacle to the path of the
water splashed. (1)
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Where, We is Weber number, ρ is the density of water in kg/m3, v is
the velocity of water in m/sec, l is the characteristic length of the
groove of the tread pattern in m and σ is the surface tension in N/m.
At low Weber number, the flow field is heavily influenced by surface
tension as edges of the broken sheet are rapidly pulled in towards the
rib structures and little or no sheet remains. The majority of the
droplet field at low Weber number results from the break-up of the
water jet, thus, larger droplet sizes are expected. At higher Weber
number, the flow is driven by the fluid inertia and more liquid
remains in the sheets. The breakup of these thin sheets tends to
produce smaller droplets. The aim of this paper was to study the
factors that affect the splashing characteristics of a tire and effect of
the impingement of the splashed water jet on rear fender.
Description of Simulation Model
CFD Modeling
The objective here was to simulate the physics of water splashing for
the rear tire of a motorcycle to visualize the splash angle and map the
loading pressure exerted by the water on the fender. To simulate this,
a simplified geometry tire and rear fender was modeled.
A rectangular domain was created in ANSA to accommodate the
complete splash phenomenon as shown in figure 2. Separate inlet for
air and water and a common pressure outlet were created to simulate
road like conditions. The tire and the wheel were assigned moving wall
condition to simulate the effect of rotating tire. The road was modeled
as a moving wall with velocity varying according to the case.
Figure 2. Mesh domain
A fine surface mesh was used to capture the tread patterns accurately.
The model was then import in Fluent meshing mode. To resolve the
near wall behavior more accurately, prism layers were generated. A
tetrahedral volume mesh was created with three refinement boxes to
resolve the flow behind the tire fender assembly.
The volume mesh was then taken into Fluent solver. A steady state
solution approach was selected as we were concerned with the final
state of the solution, which was not dependent on the initial flow
conditions. Also, each phase has a distinct inflow boundary condition.
A multiphase flow approach was adopted to visualize the behavior of
free liquid surface during the physics simulation.
The current simulation being a two phase separated flow, there was a
need to resolve the interface between the two phases. This can be
achieved either by tracking the interface explicitly (surface method)
or by marking the fluid separated by the interface (volume method).
Volume method was considered more suitable for the current
simulation as it is more suitable to handle complex free surfaces than
surface methods.
Particles in cells (PIC), Marker and Cell (MAC) and Volume of Fluid
(VOF) are some of the Volume methods available for interface
tracking. PIC method uses mass assigned particles to calculate the
properties of fluid at each cell center. These particles are moved with
the interpolated acceleration and velocity obtained from the first
roughly calculated and then corrected Eulerian field equations at each
cell center. MAC method uses a similar approach but with mass less
particles, thus making them solely useful for phase tracking only.
Both these methods are computationally very expensive when used in
3 dimensional cases.
To visualize water splash in our simulation, the interface between
water and air was tracked using Volume of fluid method. Different
from the PIC and MAC methods, VOF uses volume fraction for
Eulerian marking of liquid interface. Instead of being dependent of
fluid elements, here phase composition is dependent on a fixed field.
The solution of a continuity equation for volume of fraction for water
phase is used for tracking of the interface. In the current multi-phase
flow, it calculates the volume fraction for the secondary phase. For a
multiphase simulation with ‘q’ phases, the volume fraction equation
for the primary phase will be computed based on the constraint:
(2)
An implicit spatial discretization scheme was used. A compressible
scheme for VOF spatial discretization was used to suppress diffusion
of large gradient near the interface. The COUPLED algorithm was
used for pressure-velocity coupling. First order upwind scheme for
momentum and an implicit first order scheme for temporal terms
ensured a robust solution in the initial stages of the solution.
To validate the results of the simulation, a physical test was
performed where the vehicle was placed stationary in a continuously
filling pit of water to maintain continuous water level. For a specified
level of water, the rear wheel was rotated at 11.11 and 16.777 m/sec.
Visual data of the behavior of the rotating tire-water interface was
collected using a high speed camera.
The testing setup was virtually simulated in Fluent. A good
correlation of the splash angle value between testing and simulation
was achieved (figure 3).
Figure 3. Comparison of Splash angle
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Different types of tires (T1, T2, T3, and T4) with varying tread
patterns and widths were used for this study. T1, T2 and T3 were of
same widths and T4 was of greater width. T1 and T4 were directional
type tires having V shaped patterns, thereby improving the water
siphoning characteristics of the tire. T2 and T3 were of symmetrical
type tires; whose continuous grooves based tread pattern improves its
wear resistance, adding to its longer life. Table 1 shows the
percentage of water collected in treads for the different tires.
Table 1. Percentage of water collection and adhesion
For the purpose of comparison, all the tires were used with respect to
a common fender. The location of the fender was maintained the
same for all the cases. For the detailed study of this phenomenon, 3
different parameters were taken into account; i.) Velocity; ii.) Tire and
iii.) Water level.
The four tires were simulated with two different velocity conditions,
and by varying the water level for each velocity. The splash angle (Ɵ)
for each load condition was tabulated and a sample splash angle
pattern is shown in figure 4.
Figure 4. Splash Angle Pattern
Table 2. Splash Angle for different water levels at 40kmph
Table 3. Splash Angle for different water levels at 60kmph
Fluid Structure Interaction
The pressure developed on the rear fender due to impingement of
water on surface is obtained through fluid analysis using CFD
software Fluent. The mesh and Solution Data were exported from
Fluent using Export function in Abaqus native format. The pressure/
force value was exported for a particular instance after the fluent
results were converged and were at steady state. In order to simulate
the stresses obtained due to the generated pressure, the mesh and
pressure/ force values from fluent software were taken as input in
Hypermesh Abaqus profile. The masses of different components such
as tool kit, indicator, reflector, mud guard and number plate which are
attached to rear fender were also considered. The boundary
conditions were defined at zones where rear fender has contact with
frame (figure 5).
Figure 5. Contact of rear fender with frame
A static analysis was carried out to check the stress and displacement
developed due to impingement of water at different speed and water
level. The maximum displacement was at rear tip of the fender as shown
in figure 6a. The maximum stresses were observed at zones near to rear
mounting of rear fender with frame (the red regions in figure 6b).
Figure 6a. Displacement Contour 6b. Stress Contour
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The analysis was performed for different speeds (40kmph and
60kmph) at each water level 35mm, 65mm, and 85mm. It was
noticed that the maximum stress region was the same for all the
conditions. Table 4 shows the comparison of stress values for tire T1.
Table 4. Comparison of stress values (MPa) for tire T1
It was observed that max stress was obtained for water level with
65mm.Similar results were obtained for other tread patterns. Figure 7
depicts the reason for stress reduction at water level of 85mm. The
water impingement zone was different in case of water level 85mm
and 65mm.
Figure 7a. water level of 65mm 7b. water level of 85mm
Similar analysis was performed for the pressure developed due to
different tread patterns and was tabulated. The displacement, stress
and strain values were higher in case of T1 tread pattern when
compared to others. The table 5 shows the analysis outputs for the
load condition with velocity of 60kmph and water level of 65mm as
this condition had the maximum impact on rear fender. In case of
stress developed in T1 and T4, the values were higher than the
allowable stress limit set for the part (in order to sustain more fatigue
load). This shows that maximum impact was from directional type
tires as percentage of water adhesion at periphery of tire was more in
these types of tires (table 1).
Table 5. Comparison of structural analysis output
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requires a minimum of three (3) reviews by industry experts.
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ISSN 0148-7191
http://papers.sae.org/2015-01-0673
Simulation Details
Table 6 shows the modeling and simulation details.
Table 6. Model Details
Summary/Conclusions
In order to study the splashing characteristics of four sample tires,
firstly the model was prepared in Fluent and was simulated for
different speeds and water level conditions. Secondly, pressure/force
values were taken as input in Abaqus software and the part was
analyzed for its structural behavior.
The stresses obtained on fender due to water splash from T1 and T4
tires were greater than the allowable limit. Thus motorcycles having
tires with tread pattern similar to T1 and T4, the thickness of rear
mount of fender (bolted to frame) should be increased by 70% and the
thickness of the indicator mounting area should be increased by 120%.
For commuter segment motorcycles, it is advisable to use symmetric
tread type tires so that the splash angle as well as stress values will be
less. If directional tires are to be used, it is suggested to increase the
groove size or the number of grooves in the tread pattern. This would
reduce the percentage of water adhesion to the peripheral surface of
the tire, thereby reducing the mass flow rate of the water
impingement jet.
References
1. Radovich Charles and Plocher Dennis, “Experiments on Spray
from a Rolling Tire”, LNACM 41
2. Varnousfaderani Shayan Rahat, “Numerical Computation
of Vehicle Wading”, Chalmers University Of Technology,
Göteborg, Sweden, Master's thesis 2013:71
3. Fluent Software Help Document
4. “Bikes in the fast lane motorcycle news,” http://news.
motorbiker.org/blogs.nsf/dx/weee-splash.htm, accessed July
2014.