Possibility of Energy Recovery from Airflow around an SUV-Class Car Based on Wind Tunnel Testing

Abstract

For many years, technological progress has been observed in the field of minimizing energy consumption by devices and increasing the efficiency of energy generation from freely available sources. Energy harvesting (EH) is one of the ways to increase the energy available in vehicles. The manuscript presents the results of a series of laboratory tests carried out in a wind tunnel using a 1:10 scale model of an SUV. The aim of the tests was to measure the air velocity in the footsteps of the car. The speed field has been identified at more than 188,000 points in the space behind or next to the car, considering the symmetry of the vehicle. The total energy was aggregated for 2760 points in a vertical plane perpendicular to the plane of symmetry. From the tests carried out, it was found that the highest speed was achieved just behind the trunk of the car, at a distance of about 20% of the length of the car. Interestingly, the speed in this area was higher than the speed of the car.