Validation of PANS and effects of ground and wheel motion on the aerodynamic behaviours of a square-back van

This paper presents a numerical investigation of the effects of the moving ground and rotating wheels on the turbulent flow around a 1/10 scaled square-back van model. A comprehensive comparison among the partially averaged Navier–Stokes (PANS), large eddy simulation (LES) and particle image velocimetry (PIV) involving the aerodynamic drag, the wake topology, the velocity and the Reynolds stress profiles in the wake region is conducted. The proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) and fast Fourier transform (FFT) are applied to the shear layers shedding from the trailing edges to comment on the coherent structures and their frequency content. The Reynolds number for both simulations and experiments is set to Re = 2.5 × 10⁵ based on the inlet velocity ${U_{inf}} = 9\;\textrm{m}\;{\textrm{s}^{ - 1}}$ and the width of the model W = 0.17 m. The results show that PANS accurately predicts the flow field measured in experiments and predicted by a resolved LES, even with a low-resolution grid. The superiority of the PANS approach could provide good guidance for industrial research in predicting the turbulent flow around the square-back van model with affordable computational grids. The ground and wheel motion mechanism on the aerodynamic forces has been revealed by analysing the surface pressure distribution, the wheels’ surrounding flow, the underbody flow characteristics and the turbulent wake structures. The effects of the ground and wheel motion on the frequency, evolution and development characteristics of the wake shear layers are analysed, thus providing relevant insights for future experimental investigations of square-back van models.