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2018-01-0704 Published 03 Apr 2018
Computational Investigations on the Aerodynamics
of a Generic Car Model in Proximity to a Side-Wall
Mesbah Uddin, Srivatsa Mallapragada, and Adit Misar UNC Charlotte Motorsports Engineering
Citation: Uddin, M., Mallapragada, S., and Misar, A., “Computational Investigations on the Aerodynamics of a Generic Car Model in
Proximity to a Side-Wall,” SAE Technical Paper 2018-01-0704, 2018, doi:10.4271/2018-01-0704.
Abstract
T
his paper discusses a realistic approach of simulating
a generic idealized car model (Ahmed body) moving
in close proximity to a Side-wall using transient CFD.
This phenomenon is very important in motorsports where
racing very close to the safety barrier is very common. Driving
in close proximity to a Side-wall alters the aerodynamic char-
acteristics of the vehicle significantly, however, only a handful
of published work exists in this area. Additionally, the experi-
mental studies conducted in the past suffer from certain inad-
equacies especially in properly emulating the Side-wall, which
cast some uncertainty as to their applicability to the real
world. As such, the present study attempted to imitate the real
world flow phenomenon by taking a non-traditional CFD
approach in which the body is translated relative to the
stationary surrounding fluid and Side-wall instead of the clas-
sical method of flowing air over a stationary object. This was
achieved by using a newer meshing technique for overlapping
grids called the “Overset” or “Chimera” mesh. The initial
challenging task was to predict accurately the flow over the
rear slant of the 25o slant angle Ahmed body model where
Introduction
C
ontinuous development of the ground vehicle aero-
dynamics Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
research is an ongoing process. Thanks to the latest
advancements in the computing power and development of
discretization and solution algorithms, CFD analyses of intri-
cate geometries and interactions of multiple objects in a fluid
flow are now affordable with sound accuracy and reliability.
Especially in the racing industry, CFD analysis play a vital
role in aero design development of a racecar. Moreover,
complex real-life scenarios, where the aerodynamic behavior
of a moving vehicle is altered due to interferences from neigh-
boring obstructions, are now possible to simulate using CFD
with sophisticated meshing techniques. One such case is
analyzed in the present work using transient CFD. A ground
vehicle, either in racing or on roads, might be in a scenario
where it has to move along a Side-wall. As it approaches the
wall, the aerodynamics of the vehicle alters in an interesting
manner. This phenomenon is very important in motorsports
where racing in close proximity to a safety barrier is common.
The existing literature shows that very few investigations were
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previous studies struggled to achieve accurate enough predic-
tions using the eddy-viscosity turbulence models. In the
present study, the SST turbulence model with modified closure
coefficients is utilized to accurately predict flow characteristics
in the initial separated shear layer and, as well as, the flow
reattachment over the rear slant. Compared to the eddy
viscosity CFD simulations of an isolated 25-degree slant angle
Ahmed body seen in existing literature, the results presented
in this paper show significantly better correlations with the
experiments in terms of overall aerodynamic characteristics,
like drag and lift, and flow characteristics like pressure and
velocity in the wake region. The wall proximity studies show
a strong influence of the presence of the wall on the overall
aerodynamic characteristics of vehicle body. When compared
with the experimental studies, although both show similar
trends, however, there exist significant differences between
the experimental and CFD predicted results, which tend to
worsen as one approaches the wall. These differences can be
attributed to the fact that the CFD emulation of the flow
around the side-wall is more realistic compared to the
experimental implementation.
performed in this area, and every work was performed rather
uniquely. However, a generic car model was chosen in this
work for simplicity and to compare the CFD results with a
recently reported experimental investigation.
Wallis and Quinlan [1] conducted experiments on a 3/8th
scale generic Generation 3 (Gen 3) NASCAR racecar model
in the proximity of a 1.37 m high Side-wall. The experiment
was conducted in a closed section wind tunnel with no moving
ground and with no boundary layer control over the Side-wall.
They have observed an interesting behavior of drag and lift
forces acting on the model as it showed an asymptotic rise
after a gradual decrease in the lift force with a decreasing wall
separation distance. Later, Advantage CFD [2] conducted CFD
investigations using a quarter- scale Gen 4 NASCAR model
with only one wall separation distance. They presented only
the pressure contour images on the car surface, and inferred
that the body experiences high lift at the front end towards
the Side-wall.
Brown [3] experimented with a Type C racecar model in
a closed section wind tunnel that had boundary layer control
only on the ground. He conducted experiments and CFD
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2 COMPUTATIONAL INVESTIGATIONS ON THE AERODYNAMICS OF A GENERIC CAR MODEL IN PROXIMITY TO A SIDE-WALL
investigations on a range of wall separation distances,
ride  heights and various rear wing angles of attack at a
range of Reynolds number. His findings are mostly in line
with those by Wallis and Quinlan [1], and, additionally
showed that the variation in ride heights of the vehicle will
the trends of force/moment coefficient versus wall-separation
in some cases. They also showed that the maximum ride
height of the vehicle minimizes the eccentric behavior. The
latest experimental and CFD investigations of the wall prox-
imity studies from the available literature was performed
by Strachan et al. [4] and Strachan [5] using a generic car
model, the so called Ahmed body (Ahmed et al. [6]), with
three rear slant angle models. They used the 50  mm ride
height case to show that lift and drag forces increase as the
vehicle approaches the Side-wall. They also demonstrated
the presence of a suction effect between the Side-wall and the
vehicle, and discussed the effect of the Side-wall on the wake
of the vehicle. They conjectured that the vortices closer to
the Side-wall generated by the vehicle were weakened by the
wall  interferences, and this caused the skewness in the
force coefficients.
Ahmed Body
Ahmed et al. [6] developed a generic car model (Ahmed Body)
with variations in the rear slant angle ranging from 0° to 40°.
However, three specific slant angle models are seen to be very
popular in CFD model validation studies. These are the rear
slant angle φ of 25, 30, and 35 degrees which are known as the
sub-critical, critical and super-critical angle models respec-
tively. These modifications in the rear slant angle produce an
adverse pressure gradient at the leading edge of the rear slant
and the sides of it that creates a complex flow pattern. This
aids in creating high or low values at the critical angle, flow
separation and reattachment over the rear slant at the sub-
critical angle, and complete flow separation at the super-
critical angle. These flow dynamics are constant challenges to
the available CFD methods. The 25 degree slant angle case
appears to be a widely used case for the CFD model validation
purposes as this sub-critical angle model generates similar
flow characteristics as of a generic hatchback real car. For the
same reason, and because of the availability of experimental
data to compare against [4, 5], the Ahmed body 25° rear slant
angle model with no stilts was chosen to be the preferred
generic car model in this study. However, the existing litera-
ture suggests that this sub-critical slant angle variant of the
Ahmed body is extremely challenging to model using the
traditional CFD approaches; see Guilmineau et al. [7].
According to Maduta and Jakirlic [8], the reason for this
failure by the RANS modeling approaches lies primarily in
the presence of inadequately low turbulence activity within
the actual separated shear layer. This results in a less intense
momentum exchange between the mainstream and separated
region, making a longer recirculation zone. RANS approaches,
which are known to be incapable of capturing accurately large-
scale eddy structures with a broader spectrum and bulk flow
unsteadiness, as present in this case, generally fail to simulate
the actual transport physics.
An abundance of experimental and computational
studies involving the Ahmed body can be seen in literature;
however, it is important to mention a few seminal works in
this paper, especially the ones those will be referred to for the
validation of the CFD methodologies adopted in this study.
For example, Graysmith et al. [9] conducted experiments with
a moving ground wind tunnel, and added lift coefficient values
to the original drag values presented by Ahmed et al. [6].
Lienhart and coworkers [10, 11, 12] conducted Laser Doppler
Anemometry (LDA), Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) and
Hot Wire Anemometery experiments at a comparable
Reynolds number to document the characteristics of flows
around the Ahmed body. These studies considered an Ahmed
body with stilts model, but Strachan et al. [13] conducted
closed wind tunnel experiment and presented force measure-
ments, surface pressure and velocity field measurements using
the LDA. However, they used an aerodynamic strut to support
the model inside the testing section, which was not accounted
for drag, and pressure fluctuations.
Literature is also rich with computational studies on
Ahmed bodies. The authors prefer not to divulge into the
detailed review of the existing literature, rather, only a few
notable works relevant to the current study will be presented.
However, an interested reader is referred to two recent papers
by Guilmineau et al. [7], and Maduta and Jakirlic [8] for a
comprehensive reading. Krajnovic and Davidson [14]
conducted a Large Eddy Simulation (LES) studies on a 25° rear
slant angle Ahmed body model without the stilts where they
were able to make an accurate drag prediction with a very
carefully chosen physics setup on a well-refined mesh.
Mingeuz et al. [15] also conducted LES with Spectral Vanishing
Viscosity (SVV) sub-grid scale (SGS) model. They showed that
although the solver was able to predict the flow features and
vortices accurately, the drag values were over-predicted.
Kapadia et al. [16] conducted Detached Eddy Simulations
(DES) using the Spalart Almaras turbulence model with near
wall treatment on the sub-critical and critical angle Ahmed
body models. The authors claimed that this approach accu-
rately predicted overall drag values but the drag distribution
on the front and rear parts of the vehicle were not accurate
enough. This implies that the concurrence between the CFD
predicted and experimentally determined drag values is a
mere coincidence, and the overall flow field was not correctly
resolved. Serre et al. [17] conducted CFD simulations using
both DES and LES models on the sub-critical angle model.
The LES method agreed with the experimental drag values at
low Reynolds numbers, but it failed to cope with the higher
Reynolds number due to unresolved boundary layers on the
top of the model.
Guilmineau and his coworkers [7, 17, 18] investigated the
flow around the Ahmed body using the RANS approach with
a range of eddy viscosity based turbulence models. However,
these studies could not match the experimentally measured
drag coefficient (CD) value of the Ahmed body with 25o rear
slant angle model. The authors stated this is a result of the
CFD predicted separated flow not reattaching to the slope of
the rear slant angle correctly. Ashton et al. [19] stated that the
flow over the 25o rear slant of Ahmed body creates complex
interactions between the counter-rotating vortices and the
separated flow which result in a shorter CFD predicted
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COMPUTATIONAL INVESTIGATIONS ON THE AERODYNAMICS OF A GENERIC CAR MODEL IN PROXIMITY TO A SIDE-WALL 3
separation region than the actual one. These complexities
challenged the existing RANS models, irrespective of the
mesh refinement or wall treatment. All reported to date eddy
viscosity turbulence models based CFD investigations: (1)
either failed to predict the separation correctly, or (2) when
they did, they did not predict the correct reattachment location
resulting in an under-prediction of turbulent stresses.
From the literature survey, it is understood that the sub-
critical rear angle model of the Ahmed body challenges the
turbulence modeling community to accurately predict the
flow features over the rear slant. Although, well-refined mesh
is helpful, the eddy-viscosity physics failed to yield accurate
results. However, it is computationally very expensive to
resolve the eddies numerically using the scale resolved models,
like the LES, which also fail to show acceptable numerical
predictions. Subsequently, a part of the current research is
dedicated to the accomplishment of a transient CFD simula-
tion process to predict, with a reasonable accuracy and afford-
able computational cost, the flow over a 25o rear slant Ahmed
body using the unsteady RANS approach. Attentions were
given to not only predicting correct lift and drag coefficients,
but also to elucidate the correct flow features in terms of
pressure and velocity distributions, especially over the slant
face. A commercial finite volume code Star-CCM+ by
CD-ADAPCO was used for mesh generation, running simula-
tions and post-processing the results.
Computational Details
Geometry and Mesh
The schematics of the Ahmed body model used in this study
is shown in Figure 1, which also shows the coordinates systems
used in this study. Here x, y, and z axes represent the longitu-
dinal or streamwise, lateral, and ground-normal directions
respectively. For the initial simulations, used to establish the
accuracy of the simulation procedure used in this study, an
isolated Ahmed body model was used in a large virtual wind
tunnel with dimensions 150L × 50L × 25L, where L equal to
 FIGURE 1   Schematic Diagram of Ahmed Body model with
axis used in Present study (dimensions in mm)
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© 2018 SAE International. All Rights Reserved.
1.044  m is the length of the Ahmed body. Various mesh
settings and physics models were tested in order to validate
the CFD approach, and to come up with an approach that best
replicates the experimental results. Once this is achieved, a
Side-wall with dimensions 60L × 0.75L × 1L was inserted in
the wind tunnel at the desired separation between the wall
and the body; this is the largest wall separation considered in
this paper. Note that the wall dimension in the longitudinal
direction was modified from the dimensions used by Strachan
et al., as the process of emulating the flow in the current study
is different from theirs. In a real world, contrary to the unre-
alistic approaches by which the wall proximity effects
are emulated in published experimental or CFD works, the
Side-wall is stationary relative to air and the vehicle is in
motion. However, in all previous studies, the Side-wall was
kept in motion relative to air and stationary relative to the
vehicle. The work presented in this paper overcomes this
discrepancy by keeping both air and wall stationary
while giving a motion to the vehicle. This is achieved by using
a newer meshing technique called the Overset mesh or
Chimera grid. It is an overlapping grid approach where the
mesh inside an overset region is moved in a stationary back-
ground mesh for motion. Objects inside the overset regions
can be individually translated and rotated with six degrees of
freedom. In the present study, the isolated Ahmed body is
located inside the overset region and moved at a constant
velocity with respect to time. The Side-wall and the virtual
wind tunnel were meshed as the background stationary
regions. An overset region of dimensions 6L × 3L × 3L contains
the vehicle model with local mesh refinements. As the flow
around the geometry was known to have adverse pressure
gradient regions, wake refinements were added to the
geometry. Hexahedral cells were used in the entire domain,
and prism layers were limited to the Ahmed body and the
Side-wall to capture high gradient near wall flows. The final
mesh parameters are given in Table 1, which were decided
after iterating with various other settings.
The overset meshing was done using the automated
meshing operation in the software and the generated mesh
had unstructured grids with wake refinements in the overset
region. The overset region contains 25 million cells for both
isolated and wall proximity cases. For the initial wall prox-
imity case, the Side-wall was placed at the first separation
distance, which is the maximum separation distance between
the wall and body. After this initial meshing, for every subse-
quent separation distances, the Overset region was moved to
the required position before running the simulation; this
process did not require any remeshing. This is another advan-
tage of Overset mesh over the standard meshing approach.
Please see Figures 2, 3 and 4 for the mesh details.
TABLE 1  Values of Mesh Parameters.
Mesh Parameters Value
Base Size 20 mm
Minimum Trimmed Cell Size 2.25 mm
No. of Prism Layers 15
Prism Layer Thickness 3 mm
Minimum Prism Layer Cell Thickness 0.001 mm
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4 COMPUTATIONAL INVESTIGATIONS ON THE AERODYNAMICS OF A GENERIC CAR MODEL IN PROXIMITY TO A SIDE-WALL
 FIGURE 2   Mesh Scenes of the domain and Ahmed body
over a plane normal to Z/L = 0.186 plane (Top View)
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 FIGURE 3   Mesh Scenes of the domain and Ahmed body
over a plane normal to Y/L = 0 plane (Side View)
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 FIGURE 4   Mesh Scenes of the domain and Ahmed body
over a plane normal to X/L = 0.5 plane (Front View)
© SAE International
Physics Setup
Choosing an appropriate physics model for a simulation
widely depends on the complexity of the flow field, the
intricacy of the geometry shape, availability of computa-
tional resources and the level of details that are needed to
analyze the flow field. Keeping these considerations in mind,
a transient eddy-viscosity based simulation methodology
appears to be the most logical one. A recent article by
Argyropoulos and Markatos [20] gave a deep insight into the
standard and improved turbulence models currently used in
CFD applications. They argued that the k − ϵ based turbulence
modelling is reliable for predicting turbulent free shear
f lows,  but have shortcomings in detecting the adverse
pressure gradients, near-wall boundary layer formation and
resultant strains, which are predominant in the flow field
around an Ahmed body. The k − ω model is seen in the litera-
ture to be superior to the k − ϵ model in predicting the wall-
bounded flows with pressure gradients. However, compared
to the k − ϵ turbulence model, this model is rather inaccu-
rate when applied to the free shear layer flows similar to the
one that can be expected in the downstream wake of an
Ahmed body. Subsequently, a combination of both these two
models, known as the Shear Stress Transport (SST) model of
Menter [21], has the combined advantages of the k − ϵ and
k − ω models.
Although the SST model is widely used in the industry,
it still suffers from some shortcomings when applied to the
adverse pressure gradient and separating flows; it tends to
predict earlier than actual flow separation. Subsequently,
literature shows that previous efforts to predict the flow over
the 25° rear slant angle Ahmed body using the SST turbulence
model were unsuccessful, be it RANS or DES. What one learns
from the literature are: the SST turbulence model predicts the
separation over the leading edge of the rear slant, but fails to
predict the reattachment down the rear slant. A few researchers
suggested to modify the constant a1 in the eddy viscosity, μt,
formulation of Mentor [21] to delay the separation; please see
Mentor [21] for the for the relevant equations. However, these
efforts did not show much success. Bredberg et al. [22] showed
that one way of circumventing this issue involving inaccurate
predictions of flow separation and reattachment would be by
varying the turbulent Schmidt number based model constants.
Bredberg et al. [22] suggested a new formulation based off the
original k − ω, and k − ϵ equations of Wilcox [23] and Launder
and Spalding [24] respectively, and included Menter’s [21]
turbulent cross diffusion term, k − ϵ viscous cross-diffusion
term and k − ω pressure-diffusion process. However, they
used the value of the turbulent Schmidt numbers similar to
the ones proposed by Launder and Spalding with σk = 1.0, and
slightly tweaked value of σω from 2.0 to 1.8. They also opti-
mized the damping function based on the DNS data of fully
developed channel flow to get the correct close to solid
boundary asymptotic behavior.
One of the well know deficiency of the eddy-viscosity
based turbulence modelling approach is its inability to predict
the correct behavior in transitional boundary layer flows.
Menter et al. [25] sought a remedy to this by proposing a
γ − Reθ transitional model which is based on local variables
such as the momentum thickness or boundary layer edge
location. This proposition attempted to eliminate the unreli-
ability of the low-Reynolds number wall-modelling approaches
that primarily dampens the turbulence in the viscous sub-
layer. This model was a novel approach in a sense that it was
evolved to avoid the need for the non-local information.
However, the correlations proposed by Menter et al. [25] are
proprietary, and are not available for general use. Later,
Suluksna and Juntasaro [26] used the framework proposed by
Menter et al. [25] and developed correlation terms for transi-
tional boundary layer flows. Finally, Malan et al. [27] cali-
brated the model for use in various practical applications. The
commercial code Star-CCM+ that is used to run all simula-
tions presented in this study implemented this variant of the
SST γ − Reθ transitional model. However, subsequent analyses
by the authors suggest that in order to achieve an improved
correlation with experiments, turbulent Schmidt number
based model constants need to be modified, in line with
Bredberg et al. [22].
To assess the effectiveness and accuracy of the SST γ − Reθ
transition model in predicting the flow over a 25 degree rear
slant Ahmed body, results using the SST model will be
compared against those obtained from the AKN k − ϵ model
with low-Re damping function as proposed by Abe et al. [28].
Existing literature suggests some moderate success of this
model in predicting separation and reattachment; see
Fu  et  al.  [29]. This model was originally proposed by
Nagano et al. [30] where the friction velocity Uτ was used as
the velocity scale. The AKN model replaces the friction
velocity with the Kolmogorov velocity scale uη to avoid the
singularity of the velocity at the separation and reattaching
points. This model uses modified model functions; firstly, to
account for multiple length scales involved in shear flows, and
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COMPUTATIONAL INVESTIGATIONS ON THE AERODYNAMICS OF A GENERIC CAR MODEL IN PROXIMITY TO A SIDE-WALL 5

secondly, to satisfy the requirements for the near-wall limiting TABLE 3  CD of an isolated Ahmed body
behavior of turbulence quantities.
Reynolds
Source Procedure Used Number CD

Initial and Boundary Strachan et al. [13] Wind Tunnel

Experiment
1.7 × 106 0.300

Conditions Strachan et al. [5] CFD RNG k − ϵ Model 1.7 × 106 0.440
The virtual wind tunnel or simulation domain face opposite Krajnovic et al. [14] CFD LES Model 0.768 × 106 0.292
to the Ahmed body’s front face was given a velocity inlet Guilmineau [6] CFD RANS-SST Model 0.768 × 10 6
0.322
boundary condition with 0 m/sec. The face opposite to the Current CFD URANS-SST with 1.7 × 106 0.307

© SAE International
back of the Ahmed body was used as pressure outlet to remove γ − Reθ Transition
the pressure fluctuations caused by the movement of the Model
overset region while the ground was used as no slip moving Current CFD URANS-AKN 1.7 × 106 0.357
wall for the overset region. That means that the ground is k − ϵ Model
considered stationary with respect to the fluid. All other faces
of the domain were set as zero gradient boundaries. The fluid TABLE 4  CL Comparison between the current and
properties in the domain were the properties of air at mean previous studies
sea level (ρ = 1.205 kg/m3, μ = 1.82 × 10−5N.s/m2). The body Reynolds
and the overset mesh surrounding it were moved at a constant Authors Procedure Used Number CL
speed of 25 m/s in the negative x direction to mimic a real Strachan et al. [13] Wind Tunnel Experiment 1.7 × 106 0.280
world scenario that matches closely with the experimental Guilmineau [6] CFD RANS-SST Model 0.768 × 106 0.173
© SAE International
wind tunnel conditions of Strachan et al. [4, 5]. The transient
Current CFD URANS-SST with 1.7 × 106 0.276
simulations were run in unsteady Reynolds Average Navier γ − Reθ Transition Model
Stokes (URANS) approach on a 96-core cluster with a with a
Current CFD URANS-AKN k − ϵ 1.7 × 106 0.272
physical time step of 0.00025 seconds. A first order temporal Model
discretization with an implicit unsteady solver is used. The
chosen time step results in a CFL number of 2.5. Each wall-
separation case was ran for 2 seconds of physical time. turbulence model based predictions from the current study
produces results showing a significantly better correlation
with the experiment.
In order to show the veracity of the flow field-predictions,
Results and Discussions span-wise distribution of the stream-wise (Ux) and wall-
normal (Uz) velocity components obtained from the current
study are compared against the experimental measurements
Isolated Ahmed Body of Strachan et al. [13] and Linehart et al. [11] in Figures 5 and 6
The isolated Ahmed body simulation was first run using the respectively where a reasonable agreement can be observed.
k − ω SST with γ − Reθ transition model with a revised turbu- Note that these figures also contain profiles obtained using
lent Schmidt number as per Bredberg et al. [22]. A mesh sensi- the AKN model. Additionally, normalized stream-wise (Ux)
tivity analysis was carried out using 25, 40 and 50 million cells velocity and pressure coefficient (CP) contour plots over the
in the overset region, and the results for drag (CD) and lift rear slant shown in Figures 7 and 8 also support this statement.
(CL) coefficients are given in Table 2 which shows very insig- As evidenced form these figures, the SST model out performs
nificant dependence on the mesh size. As such, for the compu- the AKN model by far in terms of the prediction accuracy
tational efficiency, the rest of the analyses were carried out
using the 25 million cell case.  FIGURE 5   Comparison between the CFD predictions and
In order to assess the prediction veracity of the current experimental measurements of normalized streamwise velocity
formulation of the SST model, drag and lift values from the profiles at x/L = 1.077,  z/L = 0.162.
current study and a few well-cited papers are compared
against the experiment of Strachan et al. [13] in Tables 3 and 4.
Note that the table also contains the drag and lift coefficients
obtained using the same mesh but the AKN turbulence model.
Clearly, compared to the published CFD data, the SST

TABLE 2  Mesh sensitivity analysis for URANS simulations

with three levels of mesh refinements in the overset region
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© SAE International

Minimum Trimmed Cell Size Mesh Size ×106 CD CL

1.875 mm 50 0.309 0.280
2 mm 40 0.312 0.273
2.25 mm 25 0.307 0.276
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6 COMPUTATIONAL INVESTIGATIONS ON THE AERODYNAMICS OF A GENERIC CAR MODEL IN PROXIMITY TO A SIDE-WALL

 FIGURE 6   Comparison between the CFD predictions and
experimental measurements of normalized streamwise velocity
profiles at x/L = 1.5,  z/L = 0.102.
making the use of the SST model in the subsequent
analysis well justified. It is worth noting that the authors’
efforts to produce reliable predictions using the
standard  implementation of the SST model did not
produce  any  result different from what has already been
reported in the literature.

Wall Proximity Study of the

Ahmed Body
The Side-wall proximity study was conducted with four wall
separation distances, similar to those used in the experimental
study of Strachan et al. [4, 5]. These separation distances are

© SAE International
schematically shown in Figure 9. Note that Strachan et al. [4]
expressed these distances in term of the characteristic length
L of the Ahmed body whereas, in the present study, these
separation distances are expressed in terms of the body width
W which appears to be more meaningful to the authors. Note
that the most significant difference between the experiment
 FIGURE 7   Normalized streamwise velocity (Ux/U∞) contour and current CFD approach is how the Side-wall is emulated.
plots from CFD and experiment of Strachan et al. [4] on As mentioned earlier, both the vehicle and Side-wall were kept
Y/L = 0 plane.
stationary in the experiment while air is blown over them.
However, in the CFD simulations presented in this paper, air
and Side-wall are kept stationary while the vehicle is moved,
like what was seen in case of the isolated vehicle simulations.
As such, the current methodology is a more realistic replica-
tion of the real world scenario.
The results in this section will be compared to the experi-
mental measurements of Strachan et al. [4]. The authors must
give proper credits to Strachan [5] for first carrying out a CFD
analysis of the wall-proximity effect phenomena using an
RNG k − ε turbulence model. Strachan’s [5] analysis predicted
similar trends as the experiment for a few aerodynamic quan-
tities of interest, however, this work failed to replicate the
© SAE International

experiment for few other aerodynamic quantities. Also, the

CFD over- and under-predictions of a number of aerodynamic
parameters as seen in Strachan’s [5] work do not match with
those from the current work. The authors’ believe that the
turbulence model used by Strachan is not the optimum one
for the wall-proximity effect analysis, and refrained from
 FIGURE 8   Coefficient of Pressure (CP) contour plots over comparing their work with that of Strachan [5], rather the
the rear Slant from CFD data compared with Strachan’s and
Lienhart’s LDA data
 FIGURE 9   Schematic representation of the wall separations
from the centerline of the Ahmed body.
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COMPUTATIONAL INVESTIGATIONS ON THE AERODYNAMICS OF A GENERIC CAR MODEL IN PROXIMITY TO A SIDE-WALL 7

 FIGURE 10   Dependence of the drag and lift coefficient  FIGURE 11   Dependence of the side force coefficient (CY ) on
change relative to the isolated case on the normalized wall wall separation (Y W/W).
separation distance Y W/W; the circles and triangles represent
drag and lift coefficients respectively.

© SAE International
© SAE International

observed in drag, the experiments showed a much larger

increase in side force as the wall is approached, and this
discrepancy is due to the same reason that caused the disagree-
primary focus is given to rationalize the validity of the
ment in drag prediction. Another notable difference is that,
current work.
the CFD shows that the wall-effect on side force vanishes at a
Figure 10 shows the wall-separation distance dependence
separation of YW/W≈1.3, whereas the experiment is showing
of the drag and lift coefficient change relative to the isolated
much slower decay requiring a much wider wall-separation
case; note that the wall separation distance YW in this figure
to achieve the isolated vehicle value.
and all figures to follow is normalized by the Ahmed body
The increased velocity between the body and the wall
width W. This figure also contains experimental data from
creates a suction effect between the wall and the face of the
Strachan et al. [4]. Clearly, the lift change correlation between
body opposite to the wall. This results in pulling the body
the experiment and CFD is excellent which indicates that the
towards the wall. However, as the flow moves rearward over
method by which the Side-wall is emulated has no appreciable
the vehicle model’s side-face and side-wall, the boundary layer
effect on lift. It appears that the lift tends to increase as the
keeps on growing over these two surfaces. As a result, the flow
vehicle moves closer to the Side-wall up to YW/W≈1,and
between these two growing boundary layers keep on acceler-
becomes independent of the separation distance, approaching
ating, essentially making this flow between the two boundary
asymptotically the isolated vehicle value, for YW/W > 1. The
layers resembling a favorable pressure gradient f low.
increase in lift with a decreasing wall distance is primarily
Subsequently, the rear of the body will have a much higher
due to the increased suction over the top of the vehicle. The
suction compared to the front of the body. This will create a
CFD predicted and experimentally measured change in CD
positive yawing moment about the center of the vehicle as can
plots follow similar trends. For example, firstly, drag increases
be seen in Figure 12. This causes the front of the vehicle to be
as the separation distance decreases. Secondly, in both cases,
pushed away from the wall while the rear being pulled towards
unlike the lift, drag did not asymptote to the isolated vehicle
the wall. However, since the CFD simulations did not allow
value even at the largest YW/W value of 1.3, although the CFD
the boundary layer growth over the side-wall surface, this
results are almost there. However, the values of change in CD
effect is less prominent in CFD compared to the experiment.
are significantly different for the CFD and experiment. The
Also, it appears that the yawing moment from the CFD
experiment predicted a larger increase in drag as the wall-
and  experiment converges to a same value at a larger
separation decreases. This offset can be heuristically attributed
to the difference between the CFD and experiment with regard
to how the Side-wall is emulated. The airflow in case of the  FIGURE 12   Dependence of the yaw-moment coefficient
experiment creates boundary layers over both the Side-wall (CN ) on wall separation (Y W/W).
and the body. This makes the flow being accelerated through
the gap between the body and the wall, causing a higher drag
than one would have expected in real life. Also, it appears that
as the YW/W increases the discrepancy between the CFD
and  experiment decreases implying that both will reach
the asymptotic isolated vehicle drag value at a sufficiently
large YW/W.
Figure 11, shows the dependence of the side force coef-
ficient (CY) on the wall separation where the CFD results
© SAE International

show a trend similar to the experimental results of Strachan

et al. [4]. Note that since the body is symmetric, net side force
in case of the isolated Ahmed body would be zero, so there is
no point plotting the change of side force. Like the trends
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8 COMPUTATIONAL INVESTIGATIONS ON THE AERODYNAMICS OF A GENERIC CAR MODEL IN PROXIMITY TO A SIDE-WALL
YW/W≈1.5 as the effect of the boundary layer growth on the
side wall becomes negligible as larger wall separation.
The dependence of the rolling moment on the wall separa-
tion is shown in Figure 13. Again, a similar trend can be
observed between the CFD and the experiment in terms of
the wall-distance dependence of the rolling moment. The
experiment is shown to produce a larger moment magnitude
for smaller wall separation. This and the over-estimation of
the yawing moment in Figure 12, are expected as the experi-
ment is carried out in a closed test section open tunnel.
According to Barlow et al. [31], because of streamline curva-
ture effects, the closed section wind tunnels are known to
produce hinge moments that are too large. However, as can
be seen in Figure 13, CFD is predicting a greater rolling
moment for YW/W > 0.75 which cannot be explained using
the earlier argument.
The proximity to the side-wall appears to behave similarly
to ground proximity. Subsequently, the dependence of drag,
lift and side forces on the side-wall separation distance, as well
as the observed discrepancies between the currents CFD and
the experimental work of Strachan et al. [4], can be very well
explained with the seminal work of Cooper et al. [32]. Cooper
et al. [32] experimentally investigated drag and lift character-
istics of a wheel-less simple model with automobile propor-
tions. Two of their primary objectives were to understand the
effects of the ground proximity, and moving-ground and
fixed-ground simulations on the vehicle drag and lift. Their
experiment shows that lift becomes independent of the ground
proximity for a non-dimensional vehicle underbody ground
clearance larger than 0.70, which is equivalent to YW/W = 1.2
for the present study; however, the drag still continues to
change with ground separation. These clearly support what
were observed in Figure 10 of the current CFD studies.
Additionally, Cooper et al. [32] shows that, for a given ground
separation, the fixed-ground simulation tends to give a higher
drag value compared to the run-belt case. This explains the
larger delta drag predicted by Strachan et al. [4].
In some way, the lift characteristics observed in Cooper
et al. [32] is analogues to the side-force behavior observed in
the current study. Cooper et al. [32] shows that the lift of their
simplified symmetric body, for moving ground, approaches
to zero for a ground separation larger than 0.7, which is analo-
gous to YW/W  >  1.2 for the current study. The predicted
 FIGURE 13   Dependence of the rolling-moment coefficient
(CR) on wall separation (Y W/W).
© SAE International
side-force from the current study shows a similar trend, but
not the experiments of Strachan et al. [4], implying that, as
indicated earlier, their experimental data are impacted by the
way the side-wall was emulated in their experiment. These
observations further validate the reliability of the current CFD
simulations. However, based on the findings of.
Conclusions
This paper presents a newer approach of running external aero
simulations involving ground vehicles. The traditional CFD
or wind tunnel testing procedure involves keeping the vehicle
stationary while blowing air over it. On the contrary, the
methodology used in this paper involves pulling the vehicle
through a stationary surrounding, and, thus mimicking the
real world driving in a much closer fashion than the prevailing
CFD or wind tunnel test procedure. In addition to devising a
CFD procedure that produced predictions of the flow over an
isolated 25 degree rear-slant angle Ahmed body with much
higher accuracy than can be seen in the existing literature,
this paper also presents CFD simulations investigative the
effect of wall-proximity on the aerodynamic characteristics
of a simplified vehicle body.
Specific conclusions drawn prom the paper are:
•• URANS simulations based on the standard
implementations of both AKN k − ε and Menter’s SST
γ − Reθ transition turbulence models, using the default
model coefficients fail to predict correctly the
aerodynamic behavior of the challenging standalone 250
slant angel Ahmed body.
•• In comparisons to the CFD studies found in the
literature, the current URANS simulations using the SST
γ − Reθ transition turbulence model with modified
turbulent Schmidt number model constants, in line with
Bredberg et al. [22], appear to produce considerably
better predictions of the aerodynamic characteristics like
the drag and lift coefficients for a standalone 250 slant
angel Ahmed body. Additionally, the predicted flow
parameters, such as the velocity components and
pressure show much better correlation with their
experimental counterparts, compared to what have been
seen in the existing literature.
•• Overset mesh based CFD simulations are capable of
replicating the real world scenario of driving in close
proximity to a side-wall in an affordable and reliable
way. This is a significantly better approach of mimicking
the real world compared to the studies found in existing
literature, both in terms of CFD simulations and wind
tunnel experiments.
•• The side-wall has a significant impact on the overall
aerodynamic characteristics of the vehicle body on
a track; the magnitude of the changes in the aero
behavior varies exponentially as the wall is approached.
At a separation larger than 1.3 times the car-width,
the force coefficients revert to the isolated body
values. However, the moment coefficients show the
wall-distance dependences that persist for much larger
wall-separations.
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COMPUTATIONAL INVESTIGATIONS ON THE AERODYNAMICS OF A GENERIC CAR MODEL IN PROXIMITY TO A SIDE-WALL 9
•• Although the CFD predictions and experimental
measurements showed similar trend in the delta force
and moment coefficients between the vehicle body in
proximity to the wall and the isolated one, there exist
significant discrepancies in terms of the absolute
magnitudes. Unfortunately, since the experiment is far
from accurately mimicking the real world, there is no
other arbiter, but a track test in a controlled environment
to determine the shortcomings of the CFD approach
used in this study. However, through an analogous
comparison between the findings from the current study
and from those involving investigations of the ground-
proximity, the results in this paper appears to be more
representative of the real world effect of side-wall on the
aerodynamics of a ground vehicle.
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