Race Car Aerodynamics - The Design Process of an Aerodynamic Package for the 2012 Chalmers Formula SAE Car
Journal article, 2013

This paper describes the design process of a full aerodynamic package of a Formula SAE (FSAE) style race car. The meaning of a full aerodynamic package in this context is a front wing, a rear wing and a diffuser; the focus will however be on the wings. The vehicle for which the aerodynamic package is designed is the Chalmers Formula Student (CFS) 2012 FSAE car, but vehicle data logged from the CFS 2011 FSAE car was used during the design phase. This data was used to evaluate how the aerodynamic package will influence the behaviour of the vehicle, both in terms of lateral and longitudinal acceleration as well as fuel consumption, in order to determine whether or not an aerodynamic package can enhance the vehicle performance. The main tool used during the design process was numerical simulations (computational fluid dynamics, CFD) and special attention was paid to post-processing of these simulations. It was concluded that although the resolution of the simulations was relatively low, valuable insights on how the air flows over the vehicle was obtained using CFD. The manufactured aerodynamic package was also evaluated during pre-competition testing using an on-board data acquisition system as well as flow-visualisation tufts.

Aerodynamics

CFD

computational fluid dynamics

Motorsports

Education

Author

Sven Rehnberg

Student at Chalmers

Lucas Börjesson

Student at Chalmers

Robert Svensson

Student at Chalmers

Jonathan Rice

Chalmers, Applied Mechanics, Vehicle Engineering and Autonomous Systems

SAE Technical Papers

01487191 (eISSN)

Vol. 2

Driving Forces

Sustainable development

Innovation and entrepreneurship

Areas of Advance

Transport

Energy

Materials Science

Subject Categories

Energy Engineering

Vehicle Engineering

Fluid Mechanics and Acoustics

Composite Science and Engineering

Roots

Basic sciences

Learning and teaching

Pedagogical work

DOI

10.4271/2013-01-0797

More information

Latest update

10/20/2023