Vehicle Body Shape Analysis of Tricycles for Reduction in Fuel Consumption

Abstract

Growing concern about environmental protection and energy conservation has led a number of studies to increase fuel economy and reduction in emissions. From theoretical studies one of the major factors influencing fuel consumption is air resistance and developing ways to reduce this influencing factor could be achieved by designing vehicle body shape to have a low coefficient of air resistance. This paper focuses on the comparative analysis of fuel consumption of one of an existing tricycles and NASENI TP1 with reference to their body shapes. Solid models for these two different tricycles were done and simulated using Solidworks flowxpress. Mathematical models were applied to compare the rate of fuel consumption between the simulated models. The result of simulation shows that there is a 2% reduction in coefficient of drag (C_d) and 17.34% reduction in fuel consumption for NASENI TP1 as compared to the referenced tricycle.