Simplified Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Analysis
of Tow Vehicle and Trailer Bodies

Problem: While CFD is commonly used by the major automotive and truck manufacturers, suppliers in smaller niche markets such as trailers and after-market devices don’t utilize it. The low level of usage is due to a combination of lack of expertise as well as a scarcity of in-house computational infrastructure needed. Typically, high barriers to entry exist in undertaking any aerodynamic development program, either in designing and building scale models, utilizing full-scale wind tunnels, or starting a CFD program. Even beginning one of these projects can run into hundreds of thousands of dollars and take many years; this approach is out of small designers and manufacturers’ reach.

Solution/Approach: End users consisting either of automotive design engineers or academic researchers will create trailer designs. These designs can be submitted to two possible computational solvers: OpenFoam (an open source solution) or ANSYS FLUENT (a commercial solution). In addition, the solvers will be able to run on both the OSC cloud infrastructure and the Microsoft cloud infrastructure. By providing the end users with a variety of choices, they can cross-validate their designs and ensure solver / infrastructure characteristics aren’t biasing the solutions.

Participation:
• U.S. Department of Energy
• The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
• TotalSim, Inc., Dublin, OH
• Simafore LLC, Ann Arbor, MI
• Nimbis Services INC., McLean, VA