Aerodynamic Drag Reduction Using Passive

Vortex Generator on Sapuangin XI EVO 2

ITS Team Sapuangin
Team Number 178
Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember, Indonesia
Abstract

For almost 10 years, ITS Team Sapuangin has been participating Shell-Eco Marathon
competition in Urban Concept class, Internal Combustion Energy category, and almost every year
won the first prize. Many pieces of research have been implemented to the vehicle to improve its
fuel efficiency. Aerodynamic drag is one of the resistances which increase depends on the velocity
of the car. Aerodynamic drag occurs due to the separation that produces the wake region at the
back of the vehicle. By increasing the fluid momentum through the vortex generator, the separation
point can be delayed resulting in a diminished wake region. Therefore, this research aims to
determine the effect of vortex generator placement and height on the separation point and wake
region so that it can reduce the aerodynamic drag of the Sapuangin XI EVO 2. This research is
based on numerical simulation using three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations with SIMPLE as
the algorithm solver. The placement and height variations that were used are (x/c) = 0.90; 0.92;
0.94, (h) = 0.3; 0.4; 0.5. Through numerical simulation, the optimal configuration was found to
be (x/c) = 0.92 and (h) = 0.3 reducing Cd value by 5.0534% and resulting fuel consumption of 418
km/l.

Keywords: Flow Separation, Aerodynamic Drag, Vortex Generator, Coefficient of Drag

1. Introduction

ITS team has been participating in the Shell Eco-Marathon Asia since 2010. ITS Team
Sapuangin has built several urban concept class cars and prototypes fueled by diesel and gasoline.
Since 2017, ITS Team Sapuangin has been competing in the urban concept class and gasoline
category using Sapuangin XI EVO 2 car.

Several factors that influence fuel consumption in the energy-efficient Sapuangin XI EVO 2
car are rolling resistance, gravitational force, the mass of the car and driver, engine characteristics,
aerodynamic drag, and the driver's strategy in driving the car. From several factors that have been
described, the total resistance acting on the car is aerodynamic drag, rolling resistance, and
gravitational force.

Table 1. Nomenclature table

The contribution of each resistance force can be determined by simple calculations. The
following is the Sapuangin XI EVO 2 car data.
Table 2. Sapuangin XI EVO 2 car data
Parameter Value
Vehicle and driver mass
150.4
(kg)
Rolling coefficient 0.00192
Transmission ratio 15
Wheel radius (m) 0.28
Frontal Area (m2) 1.038501
Table 3. Initial vehicle’s coefficient of drag data
Based on the data, the value of rolling resistance force is as follows.
𝐹𝑟 = 𝑚 × 𝑔 × 𝑓𝑟
𝐹𝑅 = 2.833𝑁
Aerodynamic drag changes with increasing speed. The value of drag force is shown in table 4.
Table 4. Initial vehicle’s aerodynamic drag data
V (km/h) FD (N)
5 0.157
10 0.553
15 1.189
20 2.038
25 3.064
30 4.364
35 5.799
40 7.081
The rolling and aerodynamic resistance are plotted in graphical form, a graph is obtained as in
Figure 1.

Figure 1. Comparison of aerodynamic drag and rolling resistance

From the graph, we can see that drag force is a dominant resistance force at a speed above 23
km/h. Drag accounts for 50 to 75 percent of total resistance forces at speeds over 20 km/h.
 One of the methods to reduce the aerodynamic drag of the vehicle is by increasing the fluid
momentum around the vehicle surface. The higher the fluid momentum across the surface the more
resistant the fluid against the adverse pressure and the shear stress so that the separation point can
be delayed resulting in a diminished wake region. When the wake region is lessened the vehicle’s
coefficient of drag which is the non-dimensional parameter of aerodynamic drag also reduced.
Vortex Generator which also known as the turbulent generator is one of the aerodynamic devices
that can increase fluid momentum. The profile of vortex generator generating small vortices that
mix high-momentum energy fluids from freestream with the low-momentum energy fluids from
the boundary layer.

There are several pieces of research related to vortex generators installed on the upper surface
of an airfoil. Azmi et al [1] researched a passive vortex generator applied on NASA LS-0417. The
research was done numerically at Re = 1.41x105 with 16o of the angle of attack. Parameters that
are varied in this research were the height (h) and the placement (x/c) of the vortex generator with
counter-rotating rectangular vanes type. The results obtained from this research are the reduction
of coefficient of drag in the value of 1.2% to 8% and the increment of the coefficient of lift in the
value of 0.6% to 4.6%.

This study aims to determine the effect of adding a vortex generator to the Sapuangin XI EVO
2 car using a Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) simulation. In this study, the Sapuangin XI
EVO 2 car body design and the installed vortex generator were made with Solidwork 2017
software and the flow simulation on the car body before and after the addition of the vortex
generator was carried out with Ansys Fluent 18.1.

2. Methods
2.1 Simulation of Sapuangin XI EVO 2 without vortex generator
This step aims to evaluate the overall aerodynamic condition of the vehicle including
coefficient of drag value, flow characteristics around the vehicle, separation point, and the
boundary layer thickness. These pieces of information are needed to determine the vortex
generator’s geometry and its placement. This simulation is carried out at the vehicle’s cruising
speed, which is 0-40 km/h. The following figures show the vehicle’s geometry and its dimensional
specification.
 Figure 2. Sapuangin XI EVO 2 model
Table 5. Sapuangin XI EVO 2 dimensional specification
Dimension Value
Length (mm) 2.6
Width (mm) 1.3
Height (mm) 1.1
Front Track Width (mm) 1
Rear Track Width (mm) 800
Wheel Base (mm) 1.5
Ground Clearance (mm) 200

1. Preprocessing
The computational domain was created which will be the geometrical representation and
boundary condition imposition. The domain’s geometry proportion depends on the geometry of
the vehicle including the length (L), width (W), and height (H). Each of these values is multiplied
by a certain coefficient. The computational domain later needs to be discretized through the
meshing process to solve the discretized equations of fluid flows.

Figure 3. Computational domain dimension

 In this model, boundary conditions are determined such as inlet velocity, pressure outlet,
symmetry, and wall as shown in figure 4.

Figure 4. Boundary condition

To compute the solution for a given simulation, the simulation domain needs to be discretized
through the meshing process. This model used the Finite Volume Method (FVM) discretization
process. The quality parameters that were used in this model are skewness and orthogonal quality
which were found to be 0.9 and 0.74.

Figure 5. Discretized computational domain

2. Processing
Table 6 shows the processing parameters along with the description used for the simulation of
Sapuangin XI EVO 2.
Table 6. Processing parameters
Parameter Description
Model 3D Solver
State Steady
Fluid: Air
Material ρ = 1.225 kg/m3
μ = 1.872 x 10-5 N.s/m2
Boundary ConditionRe = 1.12 x 106
SIMPLE
Solution
Second Order Upwind
Initialize Inlet
Residual 10-5
2.2.Geometry and placement of the vortex generator
In this stage, speed 25 km/h is used as a reference because that speed is the average speed of
the car on the track. The separation point occurs at a certain point (x) then will be converted to x/c,
which will be the reference of the vortex generator’s placement. Vortex generator will be placed
on the 3 locations before the separation point occurs. The location of the vortex generator
placement, the boundary layer thickness, and the vortex generator height are shown in the table
below.
Table 7. Vortex generator geometry parameter
Model Used VGs x/c h/δ l (mm) L (mm) λ (mm) β (°) t (mm)
Counter
Sapuangin Rotating
0.90-0.94 0.3-0.5 15 15 50 15 1.5
XI EVO 2 Rectangular
Vanes

Table 8. Vortex generator’s parameter configurations

Konfigurasi A B C D E F G H I
x/c 0.9 0.9 0.9 0.92 0.92 0.92 0.94 0.94 0.94
h/δ 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.3 0.4 0.5
 Figure 6. Vortex generator’s geometry
2.3.Simulation of Sapuangin XI EVO 2 body with vortex generator
The simulation method and parameters used at this step are the same as the Sapuangin XI EVO
2 car simulation without a vortex generator. Figure 7 shows Sapuangin XI EVO 2 car with vortex
generator.

Figure 7. Sapuangin XI EVO 2 with vortex generator installed

2.4. Simulation of fuel consumption on Sapuangin XI EVO 2 before and after the installation of
the vortex generator
 The simulation will be carried out using MATLAB Simulink. The vehicle’s engine
characteristics data is aquired from telemetry data at the Shell Eco-Marathon Asia 2019 which was
held in Sepang Circuit, Malaysia. The followings are the car data used in the simulation.

Figure 8. Engine torque characteristic

Figure 9. Engine BSFC characteristic

 Figure 10. International sepang circuit elevation

The MATLAB Simulink block diagram used for the simulation is shown in figure 11. The
resulting output is the overall fuel economy in km/liter units.

Figure 11. MATLAB Simulink fuel consumption block diagram

3. Results and Discussion
3.1 Simulation of Sapuangin XI EVO 2 without vortex generator

Figure 12 shows the visualization of velocity contours on Sapuangin XI EVO 2 without vortex
generator at a speed range of 0-40 km/h in increments of 5 km/h. Velocity countor represents the
flow characteristic around the vehicle. The separation point followed by wake region at a speed of
25 km/h is also shown in figure 13 in blue contour. The figure shows where the separation occurs
at x = 3.84 then converted to x/c = 0.96 which will be the reference of the vortex generator
placement in order to find its optimal performance on reducing the wake region.
Figure 12. Velocity contour at a speed range of 0–40 km/h

Figure 13. Streamtraces at the back of the vehicle

 Boundary layer thickness on each x/c are determined as shown in figure 14. Based on the
graphic, boundary layer thickness is determined by subtracting the Y at U0 with Y at U∞. These
values are going to be the reference of the vortex generator height (h/δ).

Figure 14. Determination of boundary layer thickness graph

3.2 Simulation of Sapuangin XI EVO 2 with vortex generator

Table 9 shows the coefficient of drag value after the installation of vortex generator on each
configuration. Based on the table, configuration D yields the best performance which reduced 5.05
% of the Cd. Figure 15 shows the visualization of velocity contours on Sapuangin XI EVO 2 with
vortex generator on configuration D at a speed of 25 km/h. Based on the figures, this configuration
has succeeded delaying the separation point to x = 3.931 or equal to x/c = 0.99 and reducing the
wake region at the back of the vehicle. Diminished wake region resulting a lower coefficient of
drag.
 Table 9. Cd value on each VG configurations

Figure 15. Velocity contours on best vortex generator configuration

Using the optimal configuration, the simulation is carried out at a speed range of 0-40 km/h to
obtain Cd value as shown in Table 10. The value of Cd is then calculated to obtain the Fd as shown
in table 11. The graph of aerodynamic drag comparison between before and after the installation
of vortex generator is shown in figure 16.

Table 10. Cd value data after using vortex generator

 Table 11. Fd data after using vortex generator

Figure 16. Graph of Cd before and after the installation of vortex generator

3.3 Simulation of Sapuangin XI EVO 2 fuel consumption

Fuel consumption can be estimated by making a simulation through Matlab with car data as
stated in the previous chapter. The following are the results of the Matlab simulation.

1. Original body

At a distance of 2530 meters or one lap, the fuel consumption is 6.453 ml, so the overall
fuel economy can be estimated at 392 km/l.
 2. Body after installation of the Vortex Generator

After installing the vortex generator, there was an improvement in fuel consumption, there
are 6.041 ml so that the overall fuel economy became 418 km/l.

4. Conclusion

Based on this research, the following conclusions can be drawn on the effect of the installation
of vortex generator:

1. The installation of vortex generator on Sapuangin XI EVO 2 with optimal placement and
height obtained the optimal configuration, namely (x/c) = 0.92 and (h) = 0.3. This
configuration reduced the Cd by 5.0534%.
2. By using the optimal configuration, the value of Cd is obtained at the speed range of 0-40
km/h. Then the values inputted to the MATLAB Simulink simulation resulting in the fuel
consumption of the vehicle is 418 km/l.

5. References

[1] Azmi, U. and Herman, S. “Studi Eksperimen dan Numerik Pengaruh Penambahan Vortex
Generator pada Airfoil NASA LS-0417”, JURNAL TEKNIK ITS Vol. 4, No. 1. 2015.

[2] Godard, G. and Stanislas, M. “Control of a decelerating boundary layer. Part 1: Optimization
of passive vortex generators”, Aerospace Science and Technology 10, 181-191. 2006.

[3] John C. Lin. “Review of research on low-profile vortex generators to control boundary-layer
separation”, Progress in Aerospace Sciences 38, 389-420. 2002.

[4] Shan, H. et al. “Numerical Study of Passive and Active Flow Separation Control Over a
NACA0012 Airfoil”, Mathematics Preprint Series 03. 2007.