LES study of the influence of the nose shape and yaw angles on flow structures around trains

Abstract Large-eddy simulation (LES) is made of the flow around a generic train model at two different yaw angles of 90 ∘ and 35 ∘ . The Reynolds numbers, based on the freestream velocity and the height of the train, are 3 × 10 5 and 3.7 × 10 5 for the yaw angles of 90 ∘ and 35 ∘ , respectively. The primary objective is to investigate the influence of the nose shape and yaw angles on the flow structures and the train aerodynamics. Both the time-averaged and instantaneous flows are explored. In the case of the 90 ∘ yaw angle, the LES results show that the influence of the three-dimensional flow from the nose of the train on the time-averaged wake flow is limited to a region of a length of 3.5 train heights from the tip of the nose in the direction of the length of the train. The instantaneous flow shows an unsteady vortex shedding due to the shear layer instabilities on the periphery of the recirculation region and the exterior flow. In the case of the 35 ∘ yaw angle, weak vortex shedding is found in the wake. Instead, unstable vortices are found in the lower part of the recirculation region. These vortices detach from and reattach to the train surface in a regular fashion leaving disturbances on the train surface and hence affecting the aerodynamic coefficients. The influence of the shape of the nose on the flow structures is investigated by repeating the simulations at the 90 ∘ yaw angle on a short nose model. The short nose model is identical to the long nose model whilst the length of its nose is half that of the long nose. The short-nose simulation shows highly unsteady and three-dimensional flow around the nose yielding more vortex structures in the wake. These structures result in a surface flow that differs from that in the long-nose train flow. They also influence the dominating frequencies that arise due to the shear layer instabilities.