Study of Fluid Drag Acting on Tandem Car Models

Abstract

The drag force acting on cars in tandem arrangement has been studied in the previous study by using a wind tunnel or a passing water tank in the range of Reynolds number of 8.0×10³ to 10⁶. Generally, it is supposed that the drag force on the following car is reduced by the presence of the leading car in a tandem arrangement, which is called as the slipstream effect.However, in the previous study, it was found that the drag force on the following car increased comparing with that of the single car in the specific conditions both of the inter-vehicle distance and the Reynolds number. To clarify factors increasing the drag force on the following car, we investigated the flow field around car models by numerical simulation and experiment with both PIV and pressure measurement.