Visualisation of Flow Pattern around a Car Model Using Wind Tunnel and CFD Simulation

Abstract

To analyse the behaviour of air flow around a car model under varying conditions for the purpose of finding the different forces acting on the model, definitely wind tunnel act as a tool. It is very difficult to determine the various forces in the real car moving with certain speed through the air, due to lack of technical feasibility and uneconomical also. Wind tunnel is a device to create real situation in the laboratory i.e. relative motion between a car model and air flowing around it by keeping the model as stationary object and blowing the air through the model in the wind tunnel. This is as good as a car moving with certain speed on the road. The visualisation of air pattern and analysis of the test results will considerably reduce cost and time of producing the prototype.