Drag coefficient of a body-like shape: experiments in two complementary laboratory setups

This study focuses on the experimental determination of the drag coefficient of a body-like shape, with the aim of calibrating a computational model to simulate the motion of drowning victims in rivers. The influence of various parameters corresponding to real-life drowning conditions (morphology, clothing, flow depth, limbs position and orientation of the body to the flow) was analyzed and the sensitivity of the drag coefficient to each parameter was evaluated. A range of drag coefficient values was obtained: 0.9 ≤ CD ≤ 2.5. Statistical tests suggest that more robust results are obtained when the drag coefficient is evaluated based on a reference frontal area instead of an area accounting for the variations in the morphology, limbs position or body orientation.