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The Role Of Aerodynamics In Drag Racing
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Simple Talk On The Complex Subject Of Aerodynamics
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Computational investigation of the aerodynamics of a wheel installed on a racing car with a multi-element front wing
By Carlo CraveroCarlo Cravero SciProfiles Scilit Preprints.org Google Scholar and Davide MarsanoDavide Marsano SciProfiles Scilit Preprints.org Google Scholar *
Race Tech In A Wind Tunnel For Bonneville And Drag Racing
Department of Mechanical, Energetic, Management and Transport Engineering (DIME), Università degli Studi di Genova, Via Montallegro 1, 16145 Genoa, Italy
Submission received: 10 March 2022 / Revised: 17 May 2022 / Accepted: 20 May 2022 / Published: 25 May 2022
The search for high aerodynamic performance of a racing car is one of the main aspects of the design process. The flow around the basic body shape is complicated by the presence of the rotating wheels. This is especially true in racing cars on which the wheels are not tightened, where the effects on the flow field are significant. Nevertheless, few works have focused on the flow around the rotating wheels. In this paper, CFD techniques were used to provide a detailed analysis of the flow structures generated by the interaction between a multi-element inverted wing and the wheel of an open-wheel race car. In the first part, the CFD approach was validated for the isolated wheel case by comparing the results with experimental and numerical data from the literature. The wheel was analyzed in both steady and unsteady flow conditions. Then the CFD model was adopted to study the interaction of the flow structures between the wheel with the right grooves on the tires and the front wing of a Formula 1 car. Three different configurations were considered to distinguish the individual effects. The discussions were supported by the values of the aerodynamic performance coefficients and flow contours.
The performance of a racing car depends heavily on the aerodynamic efficiency of the car. Various elements are used, such as inverted wings, flaps, end plates, diffusers and bargeboards, to control the airflow and generate downforce: this allows the vehicle to keep its grip on the ground, even in extreme conditions. High vertical loads allow more traction with the ground, and therefore a higher rating, but mostly guarantee more control when cornering and implicitly higher speed, thus reducing the lap time. For all these reasons, any improvement in aerodynamic design is considered strategic to increase the performance of a racing car. In the past, basic aerodynamic concepts were developed [1, 2, 3]. In these studies, it was clear that the wheels were some of the most influential components in influencing the aerodynamic behavior of the vehicle. In fact, while the front wing contributed 30% of the total downforce [4], the wheels of an open-wheel car covered 40% of the total drag [5, 6]; this was because the wheel is a bluff body [7]. The interaction of the wheel with the front inverted wing significantly changes the performance of the two bodies compared to those of each individual component. It is surprising, however, that no data or information about this interaction can be found in the literature, apart from the investigations of individual components that were analyzed individually. This was probably due to the difficulty in finding the actual geometry of racing cars that could be published due to the extremely high level of confidentiality of data in motorsport.
What Is Porpoising? F1’s Aerodynamic Phenomenon Explained
Axon [8] studied an isolated wheel and compared a CFD analysis with experimental measurements. Mears [9] analyzed the pressure distribution around wheels experimentally using a particle image velocity (PIV) method to compare the CFD results of a RANS model. He also compared his results with the classical results of Fackrell [10]. McManus and Zhang [11] used an unsteady RANS approach to calculate a flow field around a wheel. More recently, Issakhanian et al. [12] performed an experiment using PIV measurements to describe the flow field around a 60% scale model of an isolated Formula 1 wheel. They showed the reverse flow regions, like the wheel with its rotating structures. Axerio et al. [13] investigated the structural structure of an isolated 60% scale Formula 1 wheel in stationary and rotating conditions [14]. Specific studies have been published on the reliability of RANS turbulence locks with a realizable k-ε model [15, 16]. The influence of a rotating and a stationary wheel on a simplified model of the vehicle with a single airfoil and a smooth tire has been published [17, 18]. Regert et al. [19] Rajaratnam et al. [20] investigated the local flow field around the wheelhouse. They found that compared to stationary wheels, rotating wheels induce a remarkable influence on the vortex structure and increase the total aerodynamic drag. Pavia et al. [21] studied the unsteady flow characteristics created by rotating wheels and pointed out that the wheel rotation can affect the wake-bistability of the vehicle, as well as the aerodynamic forces. Bonitz et al. [22] found that the flow frequency downstream of the wheels can be changed by the wheel rotation. Wang et al. [23] conducted research on the effects of moving ground and rotating wheels on the aerodynamics of a square-back car model and found that the wheel and ground conditions mainly affect the flow near the ground. The general wake structure and the overall train were not obviously changed. Wang et al. [24] proposed a wake state, which they called “wake balance”, by comparing the flow field of a square back model with rotating and stationary wheels. Yu et al. [25] investigated the aerodynamic influence of different ground and wheel conditions on the Notchback DrivAer using numerical simulations. Zhou et al. [26] experimentally and computationally investigated the aerodynamic characteristics of three tires of the 185/65 R14 type with different patterns under load of a simplified isolated tread tire comparison with the real complex pattern. The geometric details’ influence on the structural structure (the effects of rim coverage area, fan spokes, spoke sharpness) and on the drag coefficient of a passenger vehicle were investigated Bolzon et al. [27] and Hobeika and Sebben [28] evaluated the contribution of a rotating wheel to the aerodynamic drag of a passenger vehicle. The wheels also play a key role in the flow structure of a car during a brake-and-turn maneuver [29]. In a corner maneuver, the modeling of moving wheels with respect to the steady case predicted a difference of 3% in the drag coefficient and 5% in the lift coefficient [30]. The numerical effects of three different wheel rotation simulation methods (i.e., the steady moving wall, the MRF, and the unsteady sliding mesh) on car aerodynamics were discussed in [31]. Yu et al. [32] investigated the influence of the wheel contact patch on the global car aerodynamic performance.
More recently, several works on the aerodynamics of racing car front wings have been published [33, 34, 35]. The Ansys CFX code, as in the present work, was used to investigate the ground effect in [36]. The CFD model setup was crucial to correctly compare different racing scenarios [37] or to investigate the effect of the wake on the following car [38]. Moreover, car aerodynamics are subject to a number of random variables that introduce uncertainty in the downforce performance; the effects of the random variations in these parameters are important to accurately predict the performance of a car during the race [39, 40]. The authors performed a fluid dynamics analysis of a multi-element front wing with a Gurney flap on a Formula 1 car [41] and an extensive aerodynamic analysis of the ground effect profile with the Gurney flap, for the vortex- To investigate shedding phenomena that can occur in certain conditions [42].
Additional analyzes were performed on vortex-shedding generation to quantify the wake and recirculation zone downstream of a bluff body [43], which can generate tonal noise in industrial applications [44]. The accuracy of numerical prediction