CHICAGO — Future aerodynamic technology current being tested by NASA and Navistar could save the trucking industry nearly $10 billion annually.

Navistar, which makes International brand trucks and MaxxForce diesel engines, has teamed up with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, NASA’s Ames Research Center and the U.S. Air Force to develop and test devices for reducing the aerodynamic drag of heavy-duty trucks.

The full-scale tests in the wind world’s largest tunnel at the National Full-Scale Aerodynamics Complex, indicate that new technology added to the national truck fleet could increase fuel efficiency on the vehicles by 12 percent and save 3.4 billion gallons of fuel.

The project is aimed at identifying drag reduction devices, such as skirts and fairings, both commercially available and still under development.

Combining the wind tunnel results with 30 years of semi-truck aerodynamic research as well as computer simulation on flow physics, the Lawrence Livermore lab has identified critical drag producing regions around trucks, such as the trailer base, underbody and the gap between the tractor and trailer.

"This is a technology that could easily be installed on the tractor trailer trucks that are out on the highway today," said Kambiz Salari, LLNL’s lead scientist on the project. "And 12 percent is just the beginning. We expect to increase that savings even more during the current series of wind tunnel tests."

The commercially available devices to be tested are manufactured by Aerofficient, Aeroindustries, AT Dynamics, Freightwing, Laydon Composites and Windyne.

Testing so far has focused on aerodynamics, but additional factors such as the safety, will be considered in further tests.