Slipstream and Flow Structures in the Near Wake of High-Speed Trains

Abstract: Train transportation is a vital part of the transportation system of today. Asthe speed of the trains increase, the aerodynamic effects become more impor-tant. One aerodynamic effect that is of vital importance for passengers’ andtrack workers’ safety is slipstream, i.e. the induced velocities by the train.Safety requirements for slipstream are regulated in the Technical Specificationsfor Interoperability (TSI). Earlier experimental studies have found that forhigh-speed passenger trains the largest slipstream velocities occur in the wake.Therefore, in order to study slipstream of high-speed trains, the work in thisthesis is devoted to wake flows. First a test case, a surface-mounted cube, issimulated to test the analysis methodology that is later applied to two differ-ent train geometries, the Aerodynamic Train Model (ATM) and the CRH1.The flow is simulated with Delayed-Detached Eddy Simulation (DDES) andthe computed flow field is decomposed into modes with Proper Orthogonal De-composition (POD) and Dynamic Mode Decomposition (DMD). The computedmodes on the surface-mounted cube compare well with prior studies, whichvalidates the use of DDES together with POD/DMD. To ensure that enoughsnapshots are used to compute the POD and DMD modes, a method to inves-tigate the convergence is proposed for each decomposition method. It is foundthat there is a separation bubble behind the CRH1 and two counter-rotatingvortices behind the ATM. Even though the two geometries have different flowtopologies, the dominant flow structure in the wake in terms of energy is thesame, namely vortex shedding. Vortex shedding is also found to be the mostimportant flow structure for slipstream, at the TSI position. In addition, threeconfigurations of the ATM with different number of cars are simulated, in orderto investigate the effect of the size of the boundary layer on the flow structures.The most dominant structure is the same for all configurations, however, theStrouhal number decreases as the momentum thickness increases. The velocityin ground fixed probes are extracted from the flow, in order to investigate theslipstream velocity defined by the TSI. A large scatter in peak position andvalue for the different probes are found. Investigating the mean velocity atdifferent distances from the train side wall, indicates that wider versions of thesame train will create larger slipstream velocities.