Aerodynamic Study of an Air Deflector for Trucks and its Influence on Fuel Consumption

Abstract

The consumption of diesel used for land freight transport is 32,942 million barrels in 2019, which is why studies aimed at reducing this consumption are required, for this the studies carried out by countries of the region and developed countries that have devoted greater emphasis to this objective, issuing regulations that allow evaluating the impact of the use of aerodynamic devices in trucks or tractor-trailers and simulation procedures. The first studies carried out in Ecuador using an air deflector indicate a road fuel saving of 4.63% under a German standard (DIN 70 030-2) which requires several parameters for its execution, in order to travel a distance of 10 km with a constant speed of 90 km / h and a gravimetric measurement process to estimate diesel consumption, having this starting point the aerodynamics of the device is analyzed before and after being incorporated into the truck, for which a simplified geometry is required or basic, conformation of the wind tunnel, a meshing, the boundary conditions and the iterations of the processing of the variables in the CFX software, resulting in an estimate of the reduction of the drag coefficient of 5.607% and a decrease in the force of drag at 244.66 N.