Aerodynamic drag reduction device based on rear wind energy harvesting

In this study，the plate and wind turbine are coupled on the rear of the vehicle（hereinafter referred to as the composite device）. Numerical calculation for the flow field around the vehicle at Reynolds number Re=1. 43×106 is conducted adopting the Reynolds Average Navier-Stokes（RANS） model and actuator line model. Three cases （that of no control，that with the plate control，and that with the composite control）are compared based on the flow field and aerodynamic force. In the composite control，the total effect of drag reduction can be divided into three parts，in which the pressure on the rear of the vehicle is increased，the friction on the slope decreased，and the thrust generated by the wind turbine. Moreover，the influence of the plate length is discussed based on the effect of drag reduction for the composite device. The results show that both the drag reduction effects of the plate and the wind turbine increase first and then decrease with the increase of the plate length. The attainable maximum drag reduction is 19.5%. © 2022 AAAS Press of Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics. All rights reserved.