This presentation was made at the NAFEMS Eastern European Seminar "Engineering Analysis & Simulation in the Automotive Industry" held on the 7th of November in Bucharest.

Automotive manufacturers and suppliers are constantly challenged with delivering innovative, safe, and dependable vehicles to market as efficiently as possible. As a result, engineering teams must discover, evaluate, and successfully implement leading-edge technology and methods to produce a reliable, effective outcome. Many of these efforts now come together under concepts such as Industry 4.0, Digital Twin, CAE Democratization, and Cloud Solutions. But what do these really mean for you, as a simulation specialist?

Resource Abstract

Because the aerodynamic loads, which are acting on a car, play a significant part concerning the dynamic behaviour of the latter as regards stability, handling, crosswind sensitivity, wind noise and not lastly upon the fuel consumption, the aerodynamics becomes an important design consideration. Figure 1 shows the influence of the drag D (air resistance) on the gross engine required power for a heavy vehicle (35000 kg) [1]. As revealed, starting with a cruising speed of 50 km/h the air resistance become an important factor on the necessary thrust of the vehicles and represents the main component of the consumed engine power for a speed over 90 km/h. The figure depicts also the fuel consumption.