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Assignment A3:
Airfoil in ground effect
Version 1
18 September 2018
1. Introduction
The purpose of this assignment is to make students to practice running Computational Fluid
Dynamics simulation for a simple yet practical case in race car engineering.
The basic idea is to examine whether it is worth to employ wings on a Formula SAE racecar
(Fig. 1). These cars are designed, built and raced by university students every year around the
globe. The cars have an empty weight around 160 – 220 kg and are equipped with either a 50
HP internal combustion engine or an electric motor. Although their top speed is usually in
excess of 150 km/h, for safety reasons the tracks are assembled in a way so that their top
speed in a straight does not exceed about 80-90 km/h. The typical corner speeds are around
40-60 km/h.
Fig. 1. The Arrabona Racing Team’s ART02 race car from 2015. This is the race car designed and built by students
at the Audi Department of Vehicle Engineering at Szechenyi University in Győr, Hungary.
Your task is to calculate the lift (in our case: the downforce) of an airfoil at the typical corner
speeds, i.e. 50 km/h but in ground effect, i.e. close to a moving ground.
1
AJNM_JFTA005: CFD in Vehicle Engineering Széchenyi University
Instructor: D. Feszty Audi Hungaria Dept. of Whole Vehicle Development
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Your task is to simulate an airfoil in ground effect and in inverted configuration, i.e. with the lift
pointing downwards and the airfoil in close vicinity to a moving ground. The question to be
answered is: will the lift generated in ground effect be higher than in the isolated case?
2. Objectives
Note: This case is representative of the flow between a moving airfoil and the
stationary road.
Goals:
- Generate the curves of aerodynamic characteristics for the FX 63-137 airfoil
via CFD and compare them to experiment, if possible (need to make
literature review on these)
2
AJNM_JFTA005: CFD in Vehicle Engineering Széchenyi University
Instructor: D. Feszty Audi Hungaria Dept. of Whole Vehicle Development
_____________________________________________________________________________________
- The aerodynamic curves consist of:
o lift curve (i.e. cl – curve)
o drag polar (i.e. cl – cd curve)
o pitching moment curve (i.e. cm – curve)
- for generating the above curves, use a 2 degrees increment for the Angle of
Attack, i.e. run eight (8) steady-state CFD simulations at 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12,
14 degrees and extract the above plots from these results.
3
AJNM_JFTA005: CFD in Vehicle Engineering Széchenyi University
Instructor: D. Feszty Audi Hungaria Dept. of Whole Vehicle Development
_____________________________________________________________________________________
plot the CFD results as dots over the experimental curves
discuss how good or bad the comparison is to experiment
- submit a Technical Report describing all the above according to the format
shown in Sec. 3.
3. Deliverables:
Form of submission: electronically, as well as a printed report in black and white (this is
the preferred format in scientific literature). As such, it is advised
to save figures from CFD or Excel right away in the format, which
in black and white will be clear to the reader.
6
AJNM_JFTA005: CFD in Vehicle Engineering Széchenyi University
Instructor: D. Feszty Audi Hungaria Dept. of Whole Vehicle Development
_____________________________________________________________________________________
7
AJNM_JFTA005: CFD in Vehicle Engineering Széchenyi University
Instructor: D. Feszty Audi Hungaria Dept. of Whole Vehicle Development
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Airfoil coordinates
8
AJNM_JFTA005: CFD in Vehicle Engineering Széchenyi University
Instructor: D. Feszty Audi Hungaria Dept. of Whole Vehicle Development
_____________________________________________________________________________________
9
AJNM_JFTA005: CFD in Vehicle Engineering Széchenyi University
Instructor: D. Feszty Audi Hungaria Dept. of Whole Vehicle Development
_____________________________________________________________________________________
10
AJNM_JFTA005: CFD in Vehicle Engineering Széchenyi University
Instructor: D. Feszty Audi Hungaria Dept. of Whole Vehicle Development
_____________________________________________________________________________________
11
AJNM_JFTA005: CFD in Vehicle Engineering Széchenyi University
Instructor: D. Feszty Audi Hungaria Dept. of Whole Vehicle Development
_____________________________________________________________________________________
12
AJNM_JFTA005: CFD in Vehicle Engineering Széchenyi University
Instructor: D. Feszty Audi Hungaria Dept. of Whole Vehicle Development
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Airfoil data for FX 63-137 airfoil:
Tabulated lift and drag data for all Reynolds numbers
13
AJNM_JFTA005: CFD in Vehicle Engineering Széchenyi University
Instructor: D. Feszty Audi Hungaria Dept. of Whole Vehicle Development
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Airfoil data for FX 63-137 airfoil:
Tabulated lift and moment data for all Reynolds numbers
14
AJNM_JFTA005: CFD in Vehicle Engineering Széchenyi University
Instructor: D. Feszty Audi Hungaria Dept. of Whole Vehicle Development
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Airfoil data for FX 63-137 airfoil:
Tabulated lift and moment data for all Reynolds numbers (contd.)
15