Development of novel vehicle design modelling functions for quantifying vehicles’ shapes

The inland goods transportation sector has become dominant by high fuel consuming heavy goods vehicles, which are more commonly known as truck-trailer units. Manufacturers have been trying to design aerodynamically efficient truck-trailer units to reduce ever increasing fuel costs. The scope for streamlining the shape of the truck-trailer unit is severely limited due to legally imposed dimensional restrictions. The development of truck-trailer prototypes is both time consuming and costly. Hence, in the present study, a novel mathematical model has been developed to generate the shape of a truck-trailer units. Furthermore, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) based techniques have been employed to analyse the aerodynamic performance of the truck–trailer unit. It has been noticed that the developed vehicle modelling functions are accurate, inexpensive, user-friendly and robust. These vehicle modelling functions are expected to aid the truck-trailer manufacturers for optimising vehicle shapes.