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Car manufacturers have a growing interest in developing more efficient vehicles. New technologies have emerged in different areas one of them is vehicle aerodynamics. The aerodynamic resistance, i.e., the forces generated by the air in a vehicle, has considerable influence on fuel consumption. In this paper it´s presented a computational methodology using CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) and optimization tool to evaluate production vehicle and indicate possible ways to reduce its drag coefficient. Efforts are concentrated on modifying the geometry of the external design, a procedure whereby vehicle´s regions of interest are chosen to be valued on a pre-set geometric range parameters, arranging a DOE (Design of Experiments) that are evaluated virtually. In a fully automated procedure, changes are made to these parameters using morphing tools and then CFD calculations are performed. Software ANSA and Star-CCM + are respectively used.

Automotive manufacturers have intensified their efforts to decrease the vehicle drag coefficients and weight in order to optimize fuel consumption, in all light commercial vehicles segments. The sump guard is an important component to be evaluated; it has significant influence in drag and in the total weight of vehicles. The present work intends to evaluate the sump guard component replacing steel - more commonly used in the Brazilian market - for polymeric materials. A complete study of feasibility under the light of the aerodynamics and structural analysis is made. It also considered the benefits of applying polymers instead of steel. In the structural analysis, an impact and its consequences over the integrity of the component are verified using the finite analysis method. As for the aerodynamics, a complete car in a wind tunnel is replicated, using the finite volume analysis, to verify the influence of drag and pressure coefficients over the sump guard.