Investigation of relationship between drag and lift coefficients for a generic car model

Abstract

The paper presents a study of aerodynamic characteristics of a car, which has the simplified geometric shape, so called Ahmed body. Flow around the body and the influence of its rear slant angle on drag are widely studied by numerous researchers. However, small number of studies treats the relationship between drag and lift and this phenomenon is not fully understood. To clarify the relationship between lift and drag, experiments are conducted in the wind tunnel of ENSAM - Paris. The study is carried out for different rear slant angles in order to determine how the drag coefficient varies with lift. The results of experiments are completed by numerical simulations, which permit to obtain the detailed flow field around Ahmed body and to understand better the effect of rear slant angle on drag and lift coefficients.