Eventos Anais de eventos
COBEM 2023
27th International Congress of Mechanical Engineering
AERODYNAMIC ANALYSIS OF A FSAE VEHICLE OF THE UFVOLTS MAJORADOS TEAM THROUGH CHANGES IN END PLATES DESIGN
Submission Author:
Joseph Kalil Khoury Junior , MG , Brazil
Co-Authors:
Ainara Paula, Joseph Kalil Khoury Junior, Geice Paula Villibor
Presenter: Joseph Kalil Khoury Junior
doi://10.26678/ABCM.COBEM2023.COB2023-1668
Abstract
Aerodynamic vehicle analysis is an important tool to determine parameters of the airflow over it. The aerodynamic design of racing cars aims, mainly, at producing down force and keeping the drag force at low levels. In Formula SAE (FSAE) racing vehicles, the wings are primarily responsible for bringing the center of negative lift closer to the axles, changing the normal force of the tire against the ground, increasing friction, and making the vehicle more stable in corners. Therefore, the objective is to analyze the aerodynamic design of the UFVolts Majorados FSAE team with the aid of computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The applied methodology complies with the FSAE Rules 2022, respecting the geometric constraints of the vehicle. The CAD designs were modeled in SolidWorks and the CFD simulations performed in ANSYS Fluent. A mesh independence study was carried out to verify that the results found by the program are independent of the mesh size used. After each simulation step, the aerodynamic coefficients were compared, as well as the aerodynamic efficiency of each studied model. Thus, the best configuration in terms of the lowest drag force coefficient for highest gain in down force was selected. The final assembly achieved a drag coefficient (CD) of 0.898, a lift coefficient (CL) of -1.2019 and an aerodynamic efficiency of 1.3375, representing 0.68% reduction in CD, 20.0% increase in CL, and improvement of 20.82% in efficiency compared to the initial design with front and rear wings.
Keywords
Race Car Aerodynamics, CFD simulation, FSAE, Design optimisation
