International Journal of

Fluid and Thermal Engineering

A Peer-reviewed journal

ISSN: 2455-3670

IJFTE 01 (2015) 020-026

NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF TWO-DIMENSIONAL AHMED BODY

*
Mehul P Bambhania 1 ,Nikul K Patel2, Deepak S Jani 3 ,Shailesh Patel4
1,2,3,4
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Technology & Engineering, The MSU Baroda, India

ABSTRACT: Recently aerodynamics behaviors of commercial vehicles have been studied for
understanding drag reduction and it’s directly influences on fuel consumption for vehicles.
Behavior of fluid flow over an automobile vehicle can understand by using numerical
technique available in CFD tools. In this paper, numerical simulation has been carried out
for Ahmed body. Aim of present study is to find capability of CFD commercial package
(GAMBIT & FLUENT) for predict flow behavior accurately. It has been found that drag co-
efficient calculated by CFD tool is in good agreement with experimental result.

© 2015 A D Publication. All rights reserved

Keywords: CFD, commercial vehicle, Ahmed body, drag reduction technique

1. Introduction

Studies on aerodynamics have originated from aeronautics and marine applications. According to Barnard (1996)
at the turn of World War Two, substantial progress on aircraft aerodynamics was obtained due to the amount of
research and analysis being done. Study of vehicle aerodynamics first began to surface during the earlier part of
the 20th century and has continued up until the present day. During the earlier part of the 20th century, vehicle
aerodynamics study is associated with vehicle performance, Hucho (1998) an aerodynamicists, carried out
vehicle aerodynamics research with an aim to produce vehicles that can achieve a high speed to power ratio. To
achieve high vehicle performance, much of the attention focuses on lowering the vehicle drag coefficient (Cd),
which accounted to about 75 to 80% of total motion resistance at 100 km/h. However, in the later part of the 20th
century, during the oil crisis of 1973-1974, the focus on vehicle aerodynamics study shifted towards lowering the
drag coefficient in order to produce vehicles with better fuel economy. The trend shifted again in the early 1990’s
especially in North America where a low fuel price coupled with the increased popularity of light trucks and sport-
utility vehicles have (of which drag coefficient of around 0.45), have reduced the importance the need on research
to reduce drag coefficient, George et al. (1997). An aerodynamicists then shifted their focus towards designing
vehicle that provides maximum comfort to its occupants. Vehicle comfort consists of fine-tuning areas such as
ventilation, heating, air conditioning and minimizing wind noise inside the vehicle. Recently Ivan K. et.al. carried
out experimental and CFD investigation of the flow around an automotive vehicle. They selected Ahmed body for
CFD analysis. According to Ivan study it is observed that CFD results are in good agreement with experimental
results. CFD is tool which can strongly predict flow behavior over the body and hence aerodynamic drag.
The drag coefficient is a dimensionless quantity that describes a vehicle aerodynamic resistance and is a
useful tool when comparing different vehicle shapes regardless of size and speed. The drag coefficient can be
expressed as in Eq. (1).
*
Corresponding author e-mail: mehulp888@gmail.com Journal access: www.adpublication.org
Tel.: +91 9824209647 © 2015 A D Publication. All rights reserved

Volume 1, Issue 1, October 2015

 Mehul Bambhania et. al./ International Journal of Fluid and Thermal Engineering

(1)

Where, ρ = air density, U = free stream velocity, = drag force, A = frontal area
2 computational fluid dynamic (CFD)
This work is based on the application of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), which is used as a tool to evaluate
fluid flow over/within different geometries and a reference model. CFD modeling consists of several elements,
fluid modeling, and solver algorithm and grid generation. The equation of continuity and the momentum can be
solved with the help of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) technology. In brief, it is implemented by dividing a
computational domain into small cells where the flow is modeled and flow equations are solved. The fluid flow is
numerically computed from the basic laws of conservation of mass and momentum. As for the low Mach number
the compressibility effects can be ignored and the use of the energy equation can be omitted. The incompressible
and steady conservation of mass and momentum can be expressed as:
∇·V=0 (2)

(V · ∇)V = -1/ρ (∇p) + ν (∇V2) (3)

Where equation (2) & (3) are continuity & Navier-Stokes equations respectively for incompressible
constant viscosity flow. Using these equations and the equations of state the system of equations can be solved
for incompressible flow. Unfortunately for engineering applications there are no exact solutions obtainable and
hence a numerical discretization approach is used to solve the system of equations. Fluent uses the Finite
Volume Method (FVM) for the discretization of the governing equations in order to convert them to algebraic
equations which are solved numerically. This technique uses control volumes which are defined by the model grid
elements. The discrete values for the flow variables are stored in the cell centers by Fluent, however for the
computation of the convective terms the cell face values are required and these are interpolated from the cell
center values using an upwind scheme.

3.1 CFD ANALYSIS OF AHMED BODY

The geometry of a simplified automotive model proposed by Ahmed (1984), known as Ahmed body (Figure 1),
generates the essential features of a real vehicle flow field, with the exception of the effects due to the rotating
wheels, engine and passenger compartment flow, rough underside, and surface projections, like mirrors. The
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) technique based on Finite Volume Method (FVM) was also used for
numerical simulations apart from experiments. The mesh was generated in the GAMBIT software and numerical
simulations were made in the FLUENT software. The numerical solution of the flow around the Ahmed body is
obtained by steady and unsteady numerical simulations. It can be found that different methods of numerical
simulation other than RANS, can be used to get the solution which was used by them and results were compared.
3.1. Modeling and Meshing of Ahmed Body:

Numerical simulation has been carried out for Ahmed Body and results obtained are in good agreement with
published results. Modeling and meshing of Ahmed body has been done in GAMBIT with exact same dimension
used by Ahmed, except depth. In present case Ahmed body modeled in simplified 2D form. Figure 1 shows
schematic diagram of Ahmed body. Figure 2 shows mesh generation in Ahmed body.

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Mehul Bambhania et. al./ International Journal of Fluid and Thermal Engineering

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of Ahmed Body

Fig. 2 Schematic diagram of Ahmed body

Fig. 3 Detailed view of mesh element

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 Mehul Bambhania et. al./ International Journal of Fluid and Thermal Engineering

3.2 Effect of Mesh Sensitivity

It is observed from literature that, simulation result are dependent on mesh element size. To ensure proper mesh
element size we are selected three different case and result has been generated for the same flow condition.
Simulation has been carried out in FLUENT with 2D model for steady flow case. Simulation shows that mesh
element size with 0.05m will have reasonably good result compared with available literature. Hence for further
study with different parameter has been carried out with mesh size of 0.05m.

Case-1 Mesh element size 0.05 m Total Mesh Element= 79706

Case-2 Mesh element size 0.07 m Total Mesh Element= 71000
Case-3 Mesh element size 0.12 m Total Mesh Element= 57520

3.3 Validation of Drag Co-efficient (CD) for Ahmed Body:

Ivan Korkischko et.al. Carried out numerical and experimental work for Ahmed body. They have selected 3D
Ahmed body model for numerical simulation work. In present study attempt has been made to obtained result by
using 2D computational model for numerical simulation, which leads to reduced computational time. Results are
generated for 30 m/s of speed with zero outlet gauge pressure. Solution is based on k-ω SST turbulent model
provided with turbulence Intensity (%) =0.1 and turbulence viscosity ratio=1. Table 1 clearly indicates that result
obtained by using 2D computation model are in good agreement with 3D computational model as well as
experimental result.
Table 1 Comparison of CD results obtained for Ahmed Body

Nature of Work Name of Investigator CD for Ahmed Body

(V=30 m/s)
Experiment Experiment carried out by Ahmed (1984) 0.374
Numerical Simulation Ivan Korkischko et.al. with 3D model 0.384
Numerical Simulation Present Study with 2D model 0.399

(a) Ivan Korkischko et.al. (b) Present study

Fig. 4 Velocity contour for Ahmed Body, V=30 m/s

Figure 4 shows velocity contour for Ahmed Body. It indicates that result obtained with 2D model is in good
agreement with 3D model used by Ivan Korkischko et.al. Since 3D model used by Ivan Korkischko et.al consist
1562887 tetrahedral mesh elements, where as in present case 2D model consist 79706 quad-tri elements. It
reduces computational time as well as simplicity of modeling and meshing. Hence further study has been carried
out with 2D simplified model.

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 Mehul Bambhania et. al./ International Journal of Fluid and Thermal Engineering

3.4 Result for Ahmed body

Numerical simulation has been carried out with geometry of a slant angle of 20 . The size of the domain is 8.0 m
long and 3.05 m high. The bottom surface of the body is located 0.05 m above the ground. The incoming flow,
located one meter upstream from the nose of body, is 40 m/s, with 2.93% turbulence intensity and a viscosity ratio
of 10. Air flow is assumed to be incompressible. A multi-block structured mesh with 79706 cells, created using the
fine mesh option, was used for the present computation.

3.4.1 .Velocity contour

Fig. 5 Velocity contour with Slant angle 20˚ Flow Velocity (V) = 40 m/s

3.4.2. Pressure contour

Fig. 6 Pressure contour with Slant angle 20˚ Flow Velocity (V) = 40 m/s

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 Mehul Bambhania et. al./ International Journal of Fluid and Thermal Engineering

3.4.3. Streamline pattern

Fig. 7 Streamline pattern with Slant angle 20˚ Flow Velocity (V) = 40 m/s
3.5 Effect of slant angle in Ahmed body

Figure 7 clearly shows that rear end slant is responsible for small wake zone at rear side. Which reduced drag of
Ahmed body. Effect of further inclination in rear end slant has been studied. Slant angle increases from 20 degree
to 30 degree. Comparison for velocity, pressure and path line has been shown in following figures.

Result for slant angle Result for slant angle

3.5.1.Velocity contour

3.5.2.Pressure contour

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 Mehul Bambhania et. al./ International Journal of Fluid and Thermal Engineering

3.5.3.Streamline pattern

Fig. 8 Comparison of Rear slant edge for Ahmed Body

Conclusion

 CFD result are in good agreement with experimental result for Ahmed Body
 It is observed that results obtained by2D computational model are closer with 3D model. Its took less time
for solution
 Front Curvature in rectangular shape is useful to reduce flow separation at front top surface.
 As the speed of vehicle is increase drag force is also increase.
 At rear side slant edge help to reduced huge wake formation at downstream.
 Simulation has been done for 20˚ and 30˚ slant edge and result shows that wake generation is more in
case of 30˚ slant edge at velocity of 40m/s.

References

[1] C.Cinar & M.Ozgur Arslan, (2010), “Aerodynamic optimization Study For Roof Spoiler And Side Extender
Parts Of Ford Heavy Duty Truck Using Cfd Tools”, European Conference on Computational Fluid
Dynamics
[2] I. Bayraktar, T. Bayraktar, (2006) “Guidelines for CFD Simulations of Ground Vehicle Aerodynamics” SAE
Paper, 2006-01-3544
[3] Kevin R. Cooper, (2006) “Commercial Vehicle Aerodynamic Drag Reduction Historical Perspective as a
Guide” National Research Council of Canada Ottawa, Canada
[4] R.Mohan Rao Pamoti & R. Chetan, (2000), “External flow analysis of truck for drag reduction", SAE
International, 2000-01- 3500
[5] Min-Ho Kim, (2003), "Numerical study on wake flow and rear-spoiler effect of a commercial bus body",
SAE International, 2003-01-1253.
[6] W. heinrich Hucho (2001), "Aerodynamics of road vehicles ", 4th edition, SAE International, Vol.1, PP.
11-88.

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