Kei truck aerodynamics

The project

An experimental comparison of open, flat, and sloped truck-bed configurations on a 1:10 scale Kei truck. The team combined interchangeable prototypes, wind-tunnel measurements, and CFD to investigate how bed geometry affects drag.

My contribution

I carried out CFD analysis and contributed to the discussion, peer review, and project schedule. The team collectively handled fabrication, testing, and experimental data processing.

From question to method

• Prepared interchangeable bed covers and a custom mounting apparatus for a scale truck model.
• Collected wind-tunnel data at 31 m/s, converted strain readings to force, and subtracted the mounting-apparatus drag.
• Compared configuration means and 95% confidence intervals across four trials per configuration.
• Built NX CFD models to examine separated flow and compare simulated drag trends with the experiment.

Inside the project

In motion

Laser-scanning workflow for the truck model. Silent clip.

Results & perspective

The flat cover reduced measured model drag by 9.8% relative to the open bed; CFD predicted a 7.5% reduction. The sloped cover produced a smaller measured reduction of 3.51%. These are scale-model results. The CFD solution was not fully converged, and no full-size fuel savings were measured.

What I took from it

Simulation and experiment agreed on the configuration ranking, while idealized geometry, mesh convergence, and scale effects helped explain the remaining differences.