Reducing fuel consumption of Heavy Goods Vehicle by Richard Stephens
Channel: Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge
Date: 2016-11-14

The video shows clips from a project that investigates ways to reduce the fuel consumption of a Heavy Goods Vehicle by lowering the aerodynamic drag of the trailer underbody. Experiments are carried out in a water-towing tank, shown at the start of the video, which enables the correct simulation of the ground condition along with good optical access to the underbody. The flow is visualised using a milk-water dye, which is injected at key locations. Quantitative flow measurements are obtained using Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV). The flow is seeded with particles of titanium dioxide. The particles are then illuminated with two coplanar laser sheets, and photographed 2500 times per second. Processing these particle images using cross-correlation methods then yields streamline images and contours of flow velocity.

This video was awarded the Head of Department prize in the ZEISS Photography Competition 2016.