Vehicle Aerodynamics: Drag Reduction By Surface Dimples

Abstract

For a bluff body, dimples behave like roughness<br> elements in stimulating a turbulent boundary layer, leading to delayed<br> flow separation, a smaller wake and lower form drag. This is very<br> different in principle from the application of dimples to streamlined<br> body, where any reduction in drag would be predominantly due to a<br> reduction in skin friction. In the present work, a car model with<br> different dimple geometry is simulated using k-ε turbulence modeling<br> to determine its effect to the aerodynamics performance. Overall, the<br> results show that the application of dimples manages to reduce the<br> drag coefficient of the car model.