Numerical study on unsteady wake characteristics of an urban maglev train

As the running speed increases, the aerodynamic loads become dominant for high-speed ground vehicles. Meanwhile, the aerodynamic lift of the trailing car becomes crucial at higher speed, which may lead to security and comfort problems. Flow field details are the root to the aerodynamic loads. Study on the wake characteristics of the train could shed light to learn the mechanism of their aerodynamic loads and know how to improve their aerodynamic performance. In the present paper, the urban maglev train with a design speed of 200 km/h is mainly focused on. Numerical investigation is adopted for current study. The Improved Delayed Detached Eddy Simulation (IDDES) numerical approach is utilized to count for unsteady flow details. To characterize the vortex structures, the iso-surface of Q for urban maglev train is obtained and compared. Due to the existence of guide way, the streamline of maglev trains is much more influenced by the guide way. The ground effect for maglev trains is more obvious. The streamlined shape is quite essential to the flow phenomena, and as a result, the vortex structures for urban maglev trains are also different. Guide way could lead to more vortices, which is common for maglev trains. However, lateral vortex could be observed for urban maglev trains, which is unique and is a result of the flat shape of the trailing nose. Meanwhile, the slipstream in the wake of the train is also compared. The streamlined shape of urban maglev trains is the bluntest, which induces the relatively biggest train wind. Based on the above analysis, the unsteady characteristics of flow field for urban maglev train are obtained and the main vortex structures are characterized. Based on the unsteady analysis of flow field, the relationships between aerodynamic loads of the trailing car and different kinds of trailing vortices are obtained. Current study could shed light on the understanding of mechanism of aerodynamic performance of a train and how to design the streamlined shape for trains with certain operational speed. Copyright © 2019 ASME.