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Civil-Comp Proceedings
ISSN 1759-3433
CCP: 104
PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON RAILWAY TECHNOLOGY: RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT AND MAINTENANCE
Edited by: J. Pombo
Paper 29

Effects of Nose Shape and Tunnel Cross-Sectional Area on Aerodynamic Drag of Train Travelling in Tunnels

J.K. Choi1, S.M. Jeung1 and K.H. Kim1,2

1Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
2Institute of Advanced Aerospace Technology, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea

Full Bibliographic Reference for this paper
J.K. Choi, S.M. Jeung, K.H. Kim, "Effects of Nose Shape and Tunnel Cross-Sectional Area on Aerodynamic Drag of Train Travelling in Tunnels", in J. Pombo, (Editor), "Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Railway Technology: Research, Development and Maintenance", Civil-Comp Press, Stirlingshire, UK, Paper 29, 2014. doi:10.4203/ccp.104.29
Keywords: aerodynamic drag, high-speed train, great train express, subway tunnel, train nose shape, tunnel cross-sectional area.

Summary
South Korea is proposing to construct a new public transportation system. The great train express (GTX) will be built underground as is the present subway system, however, the cruise speed will be 200 km/h. When the train speed increases in a tunnel, the aerodynamic drag significantly increases. Therefore, it is important to estimate the aerodynamic drag of the train before construction. In this study, an analysis to estimate the aerodynamic drag of the GTX is performed using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). When the cruise speed increases from 100 km/h to 200 km/h, the aerodynamic drag is estimated. The effects of the train nose length and the tunnel cross-sectional area on the aerodynamic drag are also evaluated. When the train speed increases by a factor of two, the aerodynamic drag is increased approximately four times. The aerodynamic drag is reduced up to approximately 50% by changing of the nose from a blunt to a streamlined shape. The aerodynamic drag decreases up to approximately 50% again when the crosssectional area of the tunnel increases. The tunnel cross-sectional area for construction of the proposed GTX should be larger than the current tunnel crosssectional area. These results are applicable for the design of the proposed GTX and tunnel system.

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