Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

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Materials Today: Proceedings

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Effect of direction of lip spoiler on the aerodynamic performance of a

small passenger vehicle
Rajesh P. Verma a, Nitin Kumar Chaudhary a, Shwetank Avikal b,⇑
a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Graphic Era Deemed to be University, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India
b
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Graphic Era Hill University, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Drag and lift are two important parameters to evaluate the aerodynamic performance of a passenger
Received 16 October 2020 vehicle. Lesser drag and lesser lift (greater downward force) is required for satisfactory performance of
Received in revised form 11 November 2020 a car. The addition of spoiler at rear part of car is used to achieve the requirements. Lip-type spoiler is
Accepted 12 December 2020
frequently used for small car. A small car with lip-type spoiler at different directions is investigated com-
Available online xxxx
putationally. Computational fluid dynamics is applied to obtain drag and lift. Decreasing trend of drag is
found with increase in spoiler angle, while lesser lift is found at small spoiler angle and further increase in
Keywords:
lift is found with increase in spoiler angle. However the lift at greater spoiler angle is less than the lift of
Aerodynamic performance
Lip spoiler
base car (car without spoiler). A compromise of drag and lift is required to achieve satisfactory perfor-
Spoiler angle mance of car in term of power requirement and fuel economy (due to drag force) as well as stability
Drag of the car (due to lift). The spoiler angle 60-100 is found optimal one to use benefits of both reduced drag
Lift and lift.
Ó 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the International Confer-
ence on Technological Advancements in Materials Science and Manufacturing.

1. Introduction the limiting coefficient of friction and NR is the normal reaction

The influence of drag on the performance of a vehicle is impor-
tant as it directly affect the time to accelerate and the fuel econ-
omy. A lesser drag is favorable for satisfactory performance of a
vehicle in terms of top speed, acceleration and fuel economy [1–
3]. The drag coefficient or simply drag (CD) is generally repre-
sented as a non-dimensional coefficient as presented in Equation
(1) [3].
F D ¼ 0:5  C D  A  q  V 2
ð1Þ
where FD is the drag force (N), q is the air density (kgm3), V is the
vehicle velocity (ms1) and A is the frontal area (m2).
While the aerodynamic drag is important to evaluate the per-
formance of a vehicle, the aerodynamic lift is equally important
in view of stability of vehicle. Tractive force is generated as the
vehicle is in motion. The tractive force tends to limit by the amount
of tangential force transmitted by the wheels to the road without
spinning [4–9]. It is determined by product of mNR where m is
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: shwetank.avikal@gmail.com (S. Avikal).
force. The increasing normal reaction on the tyres will help in
increasing the maximum tractive force and therefore improve
acceleration. The lesser lift tends to increase the normal reaction
on the tyres and therefore, enhances the stability of a vehicle [5–
8]. Similar to drag, the lift or lift coefficient is defined as Equation
(2) [3].
F L ¼ 0:5  C L  A  q  V 2 ð2Þ
where FL is the lift force in Newton.
Spoilers are installed on rear part of vehicle since decades to
enhance the drag and lift requirements [9]. Installing a spoiler
can provide numerous benefits - better traction, increased fuel effi-
ciency, added visibility, braking stability, lower car weight, sportier
look etc [10–12]. There are many types of spoilers that are used. Lip
spoilers are found very suitable for small car [10]. There is numer-
ous work available in literature [8–12] that advocates the satisfac-
tory use of lip spoiler for car. But there is lack of literature that
suggests any guidelines for the angle of spoiler that provides infor-
mation about the variation in drag force and lift force with spoiler
angle.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2020.12.448
2214-7853/Ó 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the International Conference on Technological Advancements in Materials Science and
Manufacturing.

Please cite this article as: R.P. Verma, N. Kumar Chaudhary and S. Avikal, Effect of direction of lip spoiler on the aerodynamic performance of a small pas-
senger vehicle, Materials Today: Proceedings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2020.12.448
R.P. Verma, N. Kumar Chaudhary and S. Avikal Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

In the present work, the CAD model (made in CATIA) of small

car is analyzed aerodynamically using FLUENT to determine the
trend of variation of drag force coefficient and lift force coefficient
at different angles of lip spoiler. The results are analyzed to achieve
the lesser drag force and greater negative (downward) lift force for
satisfactory performance of a small car.

2. Modeling of the vehicle

The CAD model of vehicle and spoiler was obtained in CATIA V5

environment using the surface and wireframe feature. A combina-
tion of solid and surface modeling methods were adopted to model
the vehicle. The dimension of a generic vehicle model is shown in
Fig. 1. The lip spoiler was mounted at the edge of the rear side of
the vehicle without any gap with the surface of the vehicle. The
Fig. 1. Dimensions of a generic vehicle model.
generic model of lip spoiler is shown in Fig. 2. The three dimen-
sional CAD models of the car and the spoiler is displayed in Fig. 3.

Fig. 2. Generic model and dimensions of lip spoiler.

Fig. 3. (a) Lip spoiler mounted on the vehicle (b) 3D CAD model of vehicle (c) 3D CAD model of Lip Spoiler (d) 3-D model of the car with lip spoiler.

2
R.P. Verma, N. Kumar Chaudhary and S. Avikal Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

Fig. 4. Dimension of the Virtual Wind Tunnel.

Fig. 5. (a) Mesh Generation of control volume (b) Mesh Generation of the vehicle Body.

3. Aerodynamics analysis and simulation
A virtual wind tunnel (control volume) was constructed around
the model that depicts the real life wind tunnel as shown in Fig. 4.
An extension was left at the rear end of the model in order to cap-
ture the flow behavior of the rear side. The dimensions of control
volume is 6.5L  1.5L  1.5L where L = 5.2 m. Aerodynamic analy-
sis was performed in ANSYS FLUENT environment. The body was
placed in the control volume with spacing of 4.0L downstream
and 1.5L upstream.

3
R.P. Verma, N. Kumar Chaudhary and S. Avikal Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

Table 1
Boundary conditions and air properties applied in CFD analysis.

Boundary Conditions
Velocity inlet Magnitude and direction 50 m/s
Turbulence Specification Method Intensity and viscosity ratio
Turbulence intensity 2%
Turbulent viscosity ratio 10
Pressure outlet Gauge pressure magnitude 0 Pascal
Gauge pressure direction Normal to boundary
Turbulence specification method Intensity and viscosity ratio
Back flow turbulence intensity 5%
Back flow turbulence viscosity ratio 10
Wall zones No slip
Air properties Fluid type Air
Density 1.175 kg/m3
Kinematic viscosity 1.8247  105 kg/(m.s)

Fig. 6. (a) Drag coefficient and (b) lift coefficient of base car and car with spoiler.

The meshing of control volume and vehicle body is presented in
Fig. 5. Default Mesh sizes in ANSYS was assigned to control volume
and then finer sizes were applied at the surfaces and edges of inter-
est to capture strong flow gradients. A trial analysis was performed
to locate the high gradient regions and the results were used to
refine the mesh. The meshed control volume is presented in
Fig. 5a. The surface mesh of generic passenger car (Fig. 5b) was
composed of 248,076 nodes and 1,355,372 tetrahedron elements.
Realizable k-e turbulence model and non-equilibrium wall
function were used in the analysis. The convergence criteria were
kept as residuals should be below 1  103. The applied boundary
condition is presented in Table 1. ‘Velocity-inlet’ term is used to
specify the inlet of the wind tunnel, while ‘pressure-outlet’ is used
for the outlet of the wind tunnel.
4. Result and analysis
Fig. 6 shows the drag coefficient and lift coefficient of car at dif-
ferent spoiler angles obtained in analysis. A steep decrease in CD
was observed with the use of spoiler. The CD continuously
decreased with increase in spoiler angle upto 100 (Fig. 6a). While
the negative CL increases with the use of spoiler. But by increasing
spoiler angle after 20, the negative CL was observed to decrease
with increase in spoiler angle and there is not much change in neg-
ative CL was observed after 60 (Fig. 6b). Negative CL is required for
stabilization of vehicle, while less CD is favorable to reduce drag
4
force [1–5]. Fig. 7 shows the streamline flow of the air over the
vehicle. The size of recirculation zone behind the rear end of vehi-
cle was found to increase with increase in spoiler angle.
It is fact that a smaller angle of wind collision gives higher drag
force due to generation of small recirculation zone behind the rear
end of the vehicle [4–6]. A smaller recirculation zone behind the
rear end implies that there is higher pressure behind the spoiler
than the rear end of the vehicle. The rear spoiler redirects the air-
flow behind the vehicle, which in turn increases the negative lift of
the vehicle. In case of vehicle, a negative lift force stabilizes it at
high speed, increases capability to produce cornering force, gives
better traction and improves braking performance [10–12].
The drag coefficient (CD) should be less to avoid excessive drag
friction. Also the lift coefficient (CL) should be less for stabilization
of vehicle at high speed (negative CD should be greater). The spoiler
angle 20 shows lesser CL (greater negative CL), but the CD is more
(Fig. 6). A minimum 60 spoiler angle was found suitable in view
of both less drag force and less lift.
5. Conclusion
This study presented how the angle of lip spoiler at definite
height can influence the drag and lift of a car. Based on the observa-
tions, it can be concluded that at a particular height the spoiler that
possess smaller angle gives higher drag force. With the increase in
spoiler angle, the drag force decreases. Similarly, greater downward
R.P. Verma, N. Kumar Chaudhary and S. Avikal
Fig. 7. Streamline flow pattern of (a) base car (b) car with spoiler 20 (c) car with spoiler 40 (d) car with spoiler 60 (e) car with spoiler 100.
lift force creates at smaller spoiler angle. Further increase in spoiler
angle (after 20) decreases the downward lift force, but it is greater
than base car (car without spoiler). The benefits of both lesser drag
force and greater downward lift force can be achieved at 60–100
spoiler angles. Future work may be concentrated on the investiga-
tion of more aerodynamic shape of spoiler at angle 6–100.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Rajesh P. Verma: Conceptualization, Writing - review & editing,
Supervision. Nitin Kumar Chaudhary: Methodology, Software,
Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation. Shwetank Avikal:
Visualization, Resources, Data curation, Writing - original draft.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared
to influence the work reported in this paper.
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