DYNA JOURNAL ENGINEERING

Key words:

King-pin, aerodinámica, vehículo, articulado, pesado, CDF, tráiler, camión, king-pin, aerodynamic, vehicle, articulated, heavy, CFD, trailer, lorry.

Article type:

ARTICULO DE INVESTIGACION / RESEARCH ARTICLE

Section:

RESEARCH ARTICLES

The aim of this article is the aero dynamical study of the use of improvement placed in the frontal area of the semi-trailer to reduce the aerodynamic resistance of the King-pin gap.
There are some improvements and some patents of this type of devices and accessories that improve the aerodynamic efficiency of the vehicle, and so, a reduction of the fuel consumption (nose cones, vortex trap, etc.), but there are no experimental or numerical analysis of these benefits.
So some of these improvements are going to be analyzed using numerical tools and comparing the results with the results of the vehicle without them.
The devices studied are based on the geometries of some commercial improvements and patents for heavy vehicles and for other kinds of vehicles that have been modified to be used in this kind of vehicles.
To carry out the numerical analysis, the CFD methodology, using FLUENT, has been used since it allows simulating some geometries and modifications of the geometry without making physical prototypes.