Recent advances and test processes in automotive and motorsports aerodynamic development

Abstract

This article highlights the advances in the aerodynamic development and test processes of both road and motorsports cars over the last two decades, including explaining the main driving forces behind this evolution. The relentless and continuous drive to improve efficiency and correlation between computational fluid dynamics, real-time simulation, wind tunnel testing, and the track is explained. Key enabling technologies are described, such as: continuous motion systems; high-speed data acquisition systems; steel moving belt ground planes with under floor load cells; on-demand robotic particle image velocimetry; pneumatic model tyres with integral sidewall and contact patch deflection systems; driver simulators and rapid prototyped rake systems for track cars. Finally, as aerodynamicists attempt to simulate and test within ever more complex and realistic environments potential future directions and emerging trends are outlined, including gusts, aeroelasticity, adaptive cooling, and cornering.

Study of the Effect of Vertical Airfoil Endplates on Diffusers in Vehicle Aerodynamics

“…Consequently, the objective of the study is to investigate the effects of the diffuser geometry on the Ahmed body with vertical airfoil endplates in order to improve the understanding of flow behavior. The progress of vehicle aerodynamics, as a combination of the test process in wind tunnels and computational fluid dynamics (CFD), has significantly evolved in recent years in both road and motorsports cars [10]. CFD deserves special attention for its rapid advance in terms of simulation capability, accuracy, predictability, and software availability, and has allowed researchers around the world that cannot afford wind tunnel facilitates to contribute towards field predicting, for instance, the uncertainty of the car set-up [11,12].…”