Effect of the Heights of Air Dam on the Pressure Distribution of the Vehicle Surface

에어댐의 높이가 차체 표면의 압력변화에 미치는 영향

3-D numerical studies are performed to investigate the effect of the air dam height and approaching air velocities on the pressure distribution of notchback road vehicle. For this purpose, the models of test vehicle with four different air dam heights are introduced and PHOENICS, a commercial CFD code, is used to simulate the flow phenomena and to estimate the values of pressure coefficients along the surface of vehicle. The standard $k-{\varepsilon}$ model is adopted for the simulation of turbulence. The numerical results show that the height variation of air dam makes almost no influence on the distribution of the value of pressure coefficient along upper and rear surface but makes strong effects on the bottom surface. That is, the value of pressure coefficient becomes smaller as the height is increased along the bottom surface. Approaching air velocity makes no differences on pressure coefficients. Through the analysis of pressure coefficient on the vehicle surface, one tries to assess aerodynamic drag and lift of vehicle. The pressure distribution on the bottom surface affects more on lift than the pressure distribution on the upper surface of the vehicle does. The increase of air dam height makes positive effects on the lift decrease but no effects on drag reduction.