Formula Student is Europe’s most established engineering competition, with teamsall over the world. Practical problem solving in combination with applyingacademic knowledge, give students the opportunity to explore their field of study inan exciting and meaningful way. Aerodynamic development of race cars have seen significant results in competitionsince its introduction in the 1960s. Initial designs were adaptations of aerospaceconcepts for ground vehicles. Development relied solely on track- and wind tunneltesting but despite their rudimentary designs, significant performance increaseswere made. The purpose of aerodynamic development of race cars is to balance thecar, getting it to behave as desired. As a consequence of the forces generated, thevehicle corners faster at the cost of acceleration and top speed. With more powerfulcomputers, earlier unsolvable equations started to get numerically solved andcomputational fluid dynamics was born. CFD introduced the possibility for rapiditeration and exploration of more intricate designs. This report will solely utilizeCFD as a simulation tool, recognising its limitations in accuracy and real worldcorrelation. The aim of this study is to increase downforce on the front wing, whilst beingcautious of downstream impact. The goal set by the team is an adjustable frontwing that generates as much downforce as possible, whilst allowing for adjustmentsto shift the center of pressure by promoting more air to the side-structure. Toachieve this, an iterative design process based on literature is the chosen method.Continuous cross evaluations with other parts of the design team is of the highestimportance to avoid poor interaction between aerodynamic devices. The (negative) lift coefficient was increased from 4.7 to 5.7 for the entire vehicle, byonly improving the front wing. This was very satisfactory as increases upstreamoften lead do degraded performance downstream. An increased lift coefficient ofover 20%, with improvements to front wheel drag and similar side-structureperformance, demonstrate the quality and effectiveness of the design.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:kth-349722 |
| Date | January 2024 |
| Creators | Hokkanen, Mingus |
| Publisher | KTH, Skolan för teknikvetenskap (SCI) |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | TRITA-SCI-GRU ; 2024:213 |
Page generated in 0.0043 seconds