OTOMOTİV MÜHENDİSLİĞİ SEMİNERİ - DR.MARKOS ÇAĞAN
21.03.2019

System Specialty Section Manager of OTOKAR Company Dr. Markos Çağan was our department’s guest speaker on March 21, 2019.  His talk titled: ‘Use of CFD for Heavy Vehicle Aerodynamics’ was well received by faculty and students from automotive and mechanical engineering departments.  The students asked questions regarding the CFD methods and turbulence models used for aerodynamic simulations and the resulting design modifications made on a prototype semi trailer of OTOKAR to reduce drag coefficients. They also asked questions about various internship and job opportunities in OTOKAR.

Abstract of Seminar

In this study, the possibilities of reducing aerodynamic drag acting on a semi-trailer truck was investigated, specially focusing on the trailer part. In the first phase of the study, the flow around the truck was computationally modeled. In addition to the computational work, experimental work on a scaled model of the vehicle was carried out in Ankara Wind Tunnel of TÜBİTAK SAGE. The computational model was validated by comparing its own results with the measurements. In the second phase of the study, the flow pattern around the vehicle was investigated by using the computational model. The regions contributing to the aerodynamic drag was found out, and effect of installing some add-ons on the vehicle was investigated. It was observed that installing skirts around the axles and a boat-tail at the rear surface of the trailer decrease the drag coefficient. In the third phase of the study, field tests of the real truck were performed to validate the computational findings concerning the effects of the add-ons. Field test results showed a similar behavior with the computational findings. It was concluded that design modifications by implementing the add-ons could reduce the aerodynamic drag coefficient of a heavy vehicle. Thus, fuel consumption could also be reduced that way. 

About the Speaker

Dr. Markos Çağan received his BS, MS and PhD degrees from the Mechanical Engineering Department of Istanbul Technical University (ITU) in 1998, 2000 and 2007 respectively. He started to his occupational career in 1999 as a Student Assistant and then continued as a Research Assistant at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of ITU until 2002. He went to Hochschule Duesseldorf (HSD) - University of Applied Sciences, Germany in 2002 by receiving a scholarship from German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for six months. Thereafter, he worked as a Research Assistant at the Faculty of Mechanical and Process Engineering of HSD until 2008. At that time he took part in various research works from Industrial Companies. After returning to Turkey, he joined to the company Otokar in 2008, and founded the CFD section there. He worked as the manager of CFD Section until 2018. He dealt with the CFD applications in Automotive Sector, e.g: various internal and external aerodynamic cases of road vehicles including heat transfer and hydrodynamics of amphibious vehicles. He has been working as the System Specialty Engineering Section Manager since the beginning of 2019.