CFD Simulation of the Aerodynamic Drag of Personal Electric Vehicles (PEV)

Personal electric vehicles (PEV) are single-occupant vehicles driven by electric motors that can be a sustainable solution for transportation for short trip. The viability of using PEV depends on its efficiency in utilizing power from the battery. Some of the power is used to move the PEV against the aerodynamic resistance or air drag. The PEV have different position and posture of the rider. As examples, Yamaha designed Passol PEV model based on the motorcycle design where the rider positon is sit-on cycle and Yamaha Segway designed based on stand-on scooter model where the rider is standing position.
For this project, the study of aerodynamic drag on the design of PEV is analyse. In this circumstances, the posture of the rider also consider as the design. To conduct this study, three model of current existing PEVs with different rider posture is analyse. The types of model involve are stand-on-scooter; Yamaha Segway model, sit-on-cycle; Yamaha Passol and bike; YikeBike.
Personal electric vehicles (PEV) such as Segway, Passol and YikeBike do not have a streamlined shapes and hence induce higher drag force which can cause high electric energy use by electric motor to overcome the air drag. In this study, the air drag on three different types of PEV which are stand-on-scooter, sit-on-cycle and modern bike is analysed with the aid of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software and 3D modelling in SolidWorks.