Investigation on dimple inspired mitigation of aerodynamic drag of intercity bus

This paper aims to reduce the aerodynamic drag of the intercity bus to achieve lower fuel consumption through dimples’ implementation on the external surface of the intercity bus. The importance of a redesign of the intercity bus is to reduce the aerodynamic drag, which is comprised of 70% pressure drag and on the rear-side which affects 30% induced drag by the vortex. The numerical simulations for both cases are completed, wherein the design of a bus models are modeled by CATIA, and the pre, post-processing are carried out in ANSYS Workbench 16.2. The various working speeds are chosen from low level to high level for the computational investigations. The two grid convergence tests are conducted and thereby the suitable mesh case is finalized for the production of reliable computational outcomes. Drag forces are validated, which confirmed that dimples play a vital role in the intercity bus’s lower fuel consumption when it travels above 60 km/hr.