The importance of individual mobility, especially by means of automotive vehicles, has grown considerably in the past up to the present status and it is now – after exactly 125 years of successful development – an inevitable part of our daily life. Simultaneously, due to an increased awareness of damage to the environment and to the pressure imposed by legislation, reducing the fuel consumption of passenger cars is one of today’s most urgent issues that need to be addressed by engineers. Important contributions are represented by aerodynamics in general – steady or unsteady – thermal processes related to the engine, cooling management and comfort considerations. Therefore, new methods, innovative or improved tools like aerodynamic wind tunnels or climatic wind tunnels, measurement techniques and computation methods are required. As another important competition parameter shorter development times have to be established. In this volume, experts present new technologies and resulting issues in developing processes and products.

The authors are a team of experts from the automobile industry, code developers and vendors, research organizations, and academia. All have contributed substantially to vehicle aerodynamics and specifically to numerical methods, and are currently active in the subject they are presenting. Professor Dr.-Ing. Jochen Wiedemann is director of the Institut für Kraftfahrwesen und Verbrennungsmotoren (IVK), Stuttgart University, and the Forschungsinstitut für Kraftfahrwesen und Fahrzeugmotoren Stuttgart (FKFS).

Prediction of Aerodynamic Drag for Different Rim Designs Using Varied Wheel Modelling in CFD – CFD Analysis of Submerged Air Inlets for Automotive Application – The New B-Class: Aerodynamic Challenges of the Mercedes-Benz Front-Wheel-Drive Architecture – Aerodynamic Development of the New Mercedes-Benz SLK-Class, 3rd Stage: Anything Different? – Vehicle Application of Thermoelectrics: Generator and Heat Pump – Spray Pattern of a Free Rotating Wheel: CFD Simulation and Validation – Advances in Aerothermal Simulation at CRF and FIAT – Effects of Unsteadiness on Heavy Truck Aerodynamics – Future Aerodynamic Drag Targets: A Case Study – An Experimental Investigation of Wheel Design Parameters with Respect to Aerodynamic Drag – The Two New Climatic Wind Tunnels in the Mercedes-Benz Technology Center – Development of a Digital Wind Tunnel for Implementing the Ground Simulation – Robust Closed-Loop Flow Control of Drag and Yaw Moment for a Bluff Body under Cross-Wind Conditions