The air flow about an exposed racing wheel

Sie sind hier: Homepage > Suche

The air flow about an exposed racing wheel

Mears, A.P. / Dominy, R.G. / Sims-Williams, D.B.

A reliable and flexible radio telemetry system has been designed and developed that enables surface pressure data to be transmitted from a rotating racing wheel to a host PC. The system was tested and validated against existing experimental data, allowing the system to be used for more detailed and representative investigations such as the interaction of brakes, body, etc. The centerline pressure distributions that were measured using the telemetry system provide good agreement with the results of a previous investigation for both stationary and rotating wheels, giving confidence in the telemetry system. In particular the 'jetting' phenomenon, one of the special features of the flow caused by wheel rotation was observed and a strong negative peak was observed after the line of contact. This agrees with Fackrell's theoretical prediction and warrants further investigation. The stationary wheel pressure distribution showed that the base pressure was lower than for the rotating case and that a negative pressure existed over the top of the wheel due to the flow being attached until approximately 230 degrees. A flow field investigation was carried out downstream of the wheel (z = 2.51 D). The results showed that the stationary wheel had a much wider, lower wake than the rotating case, and two regions of lower pressure existed. The streamwise vorticity contour plots showed that the vortices were much weaker in the rotating wheel case. The results from both the pressure distributions and the flow field investigation were in good agreement regarding the key features of the flow