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Considering the aerodynamic characteristics of the vehicle traveling under the crosswind and the complexity of the flow field change, this paper uses overset mesh of STAR CCM+ software to carry out CFD simulation analysis on the aerodynamic characteristics of heavy commercial vehicles passing through the highway tunnel of which entrance and exit exist crosswind. Corresponding aerodynamic coefficients and flow field changes around the body at different crosswind speeds and different tunnel forms are monitored. The results show that the yaw moment is sensitive to the speed of crosswind. When a heavy commercial vehicle passes through a tunnel where crosswind increases from 10m/s to 13m/s,the yaw moment change rate increases from 34.8 kN•m/s to 45.9 kN•m/s. It also can be seen in these results is that when passing through two tunnels with a distance, the heavy commercial vehicle’s side force, roll moment and yaw moment change because of the surrounding periodic variation of flow field.

Formula One (F1) racing cars are often running at high-speed with the pitching angle changing frequently due to road conditions. These pitching angle changes result in changes to the car’s aerodynamic characteristics that will directly affect handling stability and other performance factors including safety. This paper takes a F1 racing car as the model; the influence of the change of pitching angle on aerodynamic drag force and lift force are investigated. CFD code-PowerFLOW based LBM is used to simulate the aerodynamic characteristics with different pitching angles. The distribution of aerodynamic coefficients, velocity and pressure in the flow field are obtained; and the differences between different pitching angles were analyzed. The results show that as the pitching angle increases, the drag force increases and the lift force decreases. The down-force of the car is mainly supplied by the front wing and the rear wing.

Similar to the traditional method of aeronautical wind tunnel testing a procedure to correct for support interference and wind tunnel interference in the automotive wind tunnel of Jilin University is described. Due to the fact that a moving belt is installed in the centre region of the test section the model was kept in place by an external support system. However, for our tests the moving belt was stationary. In order to separate the different interference effects two tests were carried out with the car model connected and disconnected from the support-structure linked to a six-component underfloor balance. In this way the aerodynamic force on a car model, which is then still contaminated by wind tunnel interference effects and the secondary interference effects of the model support on to the car model can be determined.