Aerodynamic Characterization of a Full-Scale Compact Car Exposed to Transient Crosswind

The transient surface pressure over a full-scale, operational compact automotive vehicle—a Volkswagen Golf 7—exposed to transient crosswinds with relative yaw angles of β = 22-45° has been characterized. Experiments were performed at the BMW side-wind facility in Aschheim, Germany. Measurements of the incoming flow in front of the car were taken with eleven five-hole dynamic pressure probes, and separately, time-resolved surface pressure measurements at 188 locations were performed. Unsteady characteristics (not able to be identified in quasi-steady modelling) have been identified: the flow in separated regions on the vehicle’s leeward side takes longer to develop than at the windward side, and spatially, the vehicle experiences local crosswind as it gradually enters the crosswind. The total effects of these localized unsteady pressure characteristics have also been predicted to affect the vehicle globally, with the evaluation of the transient forces and moments—through pressure integration—exhibiting unsteady characteristics of overshoots, undershoots, and temporal lag; relative to steady crosswind. These results provide new insight into both the characteristics and the causes of the unsteady crosswind response of a real, operational vehicle operating in real-world conditions. This insight can be used in the design of future vehicles to make them less sensitive to unsteady gusts. Further these results can be used to develop and validate numerical and reduced-scale experimental methods that can test and assess new vehicle geometry designs during the early stages of vehicle development.