Assessment and improvement of rainfall environment reproduction for climatic wind tunnel

The climatic wind tunnel (CWT) is widely recognised as the optimal experimental environment for studying vehicle rainwater management, while the rainfall field generated by the CWT for vehicles may differ from the natural rainfall patterns. Therefore, this study aims to provide an approach to ensure...

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Main Authors: Yingchao Zhang, Jinji Li, Zhe Zhang, Weiping Yuan, Jialong Zhou, Chun Shen, Chengchun Zhang
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2024-12-01
Series:Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics
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Online Access:https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/19942060.2024.2399671
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author Yingchao Zhang
Jinji Li
Zhe Zhang
Weiping Yuan
Jialong Zhou
Chun Shen
Chengchun Zhang
author_facet Yingchao Zhang
Jinji Li
Zhe Zhang
Weiping Yuan
Jialong Zhou
Chun Shen
Chengchun Zhang
author_sort Yingchao Zhang
collection DOAJ
description The climatic wind tunnel (CWT) is widely recognised as the optimal experimental environment for studying vehicle rainwater management, while the rainfall field generated by the CWT for vehicles may differ from the natural rainfall patterns. Therefore, this study aims to provide an approach to ensure consistency between the two rainfall environments by developing a virtual CWT (VCWT) rainfall scenario and a natural rainfall scenario. Two-phase flow computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method is conducted to reproduce the natural and CWT rainfall scenarios. Results of flow and rain fields of simulations are validated with experiment data respectively. Distributions of water film on the body surface and raindrop particles around the vehicle are discussed. The arrangement of rain spraying nozzles is optimised by assessing and analysing the discrepancy between the two rainfall scenarios so that a more rational rainfall environment can be provided in CWT. Improving the spacing and spray direction of nozzles benefits in narrowing the gap between natural and VCWT rainfall scenarios. An efficient approach is proposed in this work to make it possible to achieve the consistency between the rainfall environment in the CWT and the natural rainfall situation, providing an advance for rainwater management of vehicles.
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language English
publishDate 2024-12-01
publisher Taylor & Francis Group
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series Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics
spelling doaj-art-d1ebc868299c4e7c831eb448e7d0546e2025-08-20T01:55:02ZengTaylor & Francis GroupEngineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics1994-20601997-003X2024-12-0118110.1080/19942060.2024.2399671Assessment and improvement of rainfall environment reproduction for climatic wind tunnelYingchao Zhang0Jinji Li1Zhe Zhang2Weiping Yuan3Jialong Zhou4Chun Shen5Chengchun Zhang6National Key Laboratory of Automotive Chassis Integration and Bionics, College of Automotive Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun, People’s Republic of ChinaNational Key Laboratory of Automotive Chassis Integration and Bionics, College of Automotive Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun, People’s Republic of ChinaNational Key Laboratory of Automotive Chassis Integration and Bionics, College of Automotive Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun, People’s Republic of ChinaNational Key Laboratory of Automotive Chassis Integration and Bionics, College of Automotive Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun, People’s Republic of ChinaNational Key Laboratory of Automotive Chassis Integration and Bionics, College of Automotive Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun, People’s Republic of ChinaNational Key Laboratory of Automotive Chassis Integration and Bionics, College of Automotive Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun, People’s Republic of ChinaKey Laboratory of Bionic Engineering, Ministry of Education, Jilin University, Changchun, People’s Republic of ChinaThe climatic wind tunnel (CWT) is widely recognised as the optimal experimental environment for studying vehicle rainwater management, while the rainfall field generated by the CWT for vehicles may differ from the natural rainfall patterns. Therefore, this study aims to provide an approach to ensure consistency between the two rainfall environments by developing a virtual CWT (VCWT) rainfall scenario and a natural rainfall scenario. Two-phase flow computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method is conducted to reproduce the natural and CWT rainfall scenarios. Results of flow and rain fields of simulations are validated with experiment data respectively. Distributions of water film on the body surface and raindrop particles around the vehicle are discussed. The arrangement of rain spraying nozzles is optimised by assessing and analysing the discrepancy between the two rainfall scenarios so that a more rational rainfall environment can be provided in CWT. Improving the spacing and spray direction of nozzles benefits in narrowing the gap between natural and VCWT rainfall scenarios. An efficient approach is proposed in this work to make it possible to achieve the consistency between the rainfall environment in the CWT and the natural rainfall situation, providing an advance for rainwater management of vehicles.https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/19942060.2024.2399671Road vehiclesclimatic wind tunnel (CWT)computational fluid dynamics calculations (CFD)rainwater managementaerodynamic
spellingShingle Yingchao Zhang
Jinji Li
Zhe Zhang
Weiping Yuan
Jialong Zhou
Chun Shen
Chengchun Zhang
Assessment and improvement of rainfall environment reproduction for climatic wind tunnel
Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics
Road vehicles
climatic wind tunnel (CWT)
computational fluid dynamics calculations (CFD)
rainwater management
aerodynamic
title Assessment and improvement of rainfall environment reproduction for climatic wind tunnel
title_full Assessment and improvement of rainfall environment reproduction for climatic wind tunnel
title_fullStr Assessment and improvement of rainfall environment reproduction for climatic wind tunnel
title_full_unstemmed Assessment and improvement of rainfall environment reproduction for climatic wind tunnel
title_short Assessment and improvement of rainfall environment reproduction for climatic wind tunnel
title_sort assessment and improvement of rainfall environment reproduction for climatic wind tunnel
topic Road vehicles
climatic wind tunnel (CWT)
computational fluid dynamics calculations (CFD)
rainwater management
aerodynamic
url https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/19942060.2024.2399671
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