Aerodynamic Innovations in China’s High-Speed Rail: Engineering Efficiency, Network Expansion, and Sustainable Transport

Abstract

As railway speeds continue to push beyond conventional limits, aerodynamic drag now constitutes a dominant share of total resistance and energy consumption. This review synthesizes the state of the art in aerodynamic drag reduction optimization for high-speed trains, with emphasis on China’s progress. We first survey core methodologies, full-scale testing, wind-tunnel experiments, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD), and assess their respective strengths and limitations. Next, we decompose contributions to aerodynamic drag by train subsystems (nose, bogies, inter-car gaps, pantograph, and tail), and evaluate existing optimization strategies including vortex generators, fairings, deflectors, and head-shape refinements. Special attention is paid to crosswind and tunnel-induced pressure effects, as well as aerodynamic noise trade-offs. We then identify key challenges such as limitations of turbulence modeling, scaling effects, and integration with structural or cost constraints, and highlight promising directions for future work (e.g. active flow control, machine-learning–aided optimization, or real-time adaptive surfaces). This review not only maps the current technological frontier but also frames an agenda for next-generation aerodynamic design in high-speed rail.