Abstract
In commercial vehicles, the greatest challenge is to improve the fuel economy and reduce emissions. The Aerodynamic drag control is one of the best ways to do the same. In Tractortrailer assembly, the gap between the cabin and trailer and also rear end of the trailer are the critical areas which will affect the coefficient of drag drastically. The main objective of this work is to incorporate the drag reduction devices like roof fairing, boat tails and side skirts to the truck model and analyze their effect in reducing the drag. The generic model of commercial vehicle with various drag reduction devices and their different shape configurations are designed using Hypermesh and Solid thinking inspire software. A steady state analysis is carried out by using AcuSolve on truck model with various drag reduction devices. The simulation results are validated with wind tunnel test on the scaled down model of commercial vehicle with and without drag reduction devices. The result shows up to 12.7% reduction of drag coefficient with the usage of all drag reduction devices.