JOURNAL ARTICLES BY FLUENT SOFTWARE USERS JA075

Running RAMPANT: Computational Fluid Dynamics in Formula 1 Design

By SAF-DEEN AKANNI Mechanical Engineering and Aeronautical Department City University, London, England

restrictions on the aerodynamic performance of Grand Prix racecars. The latest Technical Regulations have sent the teams scurrying not only in the ongoing quest for downforce, but also in efforts to minimise aerodynamic drag, by all possible means. In these circumstances, the increasing use of ever more accessible Computational Fluid Dynamics software is extremely significant. CFD is a tool which, in the proper hands, can completely transform the capability of a racecar constructor for aerodynamic research and development. CFD enhances that capability because it allows the design engineers to exercise many, many more testing options during the design cycle. To gain an idea of the potential impact of CFD, imagine, possessing the ability to put an aerodynamic concept through a very thorough test process, without actually having to build it. In terms of time-saving alone, the benefits are vast. From concept to analysis, with CFD, the steps required are design, problem definition and simulation, and analysis of results. The traditional, experimental route additionally requires timeconsuming manufacture of the component or a model, fitting, and the wind tunnel testing phase itself. I warn the unbelievers here that their imaginations need not be of the vivid kind. CFD is the reality of the situation today at Benetton Formula, and also at

Fig 1: The generic Benetton B195, represented by line-and-point entities generated on the team's CAD software.

"CFD enhances the capability of Formula 1 and other racecar constructors because it allows them to exercise many, many more testing options during the design cycle" From time to time, like most institutions, Formula 1 undergoes revolutions - and one such revolution is upon us. It is exemplified by a collaboration, dating back to 1993, between Benetton Formula and a company called Fluent Europe. The focus of this relationship is an innocuous acronym, 'CFD'. Some people describe Computational Fluid Dynamics as "a wind tunnel in the computer." It merits a much fuller description, because its implications are magnitudes more than just that it goes without saying that aerodynamic efficiency is extremely important to every Formula 1 design team and even more so in the 1995 season, prior to which the FIA placed further

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three other Formula 1 teams. CFD is a branch of Fluid Mechanics that has a complex mathematical basis. This is due to the fact that the physical laws which govern fluid flows can be described in terms of rigorous mathematical relationships which form the basis for any analysis. In the case of CFD, the mathematical basis is a differential equation. Every branch of science is a slave to solving some system of differential equations. Some scientists are unfortunate enough to find themselves faced with solving some rather large numbers of such systems of differential equations, just to make any meaningful progress in their various fields. Depending on your point of view, those who concern themselves with Fluid Dynamics can escape this sadistic practice by dealing, for the most part, with four.

Ferit Boysan (its present managing director). The company has associated offices in the USA, Japan and Korea, and subsidiaries in France and Cermany. Among its products are three CFD codes known as FLUENT, RAMPANT and NEKTON. The implementation of CFD into the design cycle starts at the concept stage with CAD - or, in this case, it could start with RAMPANT's preprocessor. In addition to constructing the geometry to be modeled and a computational grid, the preprocessor also imposes the flow conditions which are determined by parameters such as density, viscosity and boundary conditions (walls, thin surfaces, pressure boundaries and others). The problem is actually defined by the boundary conditions.

These are the Navier-Stokes Equations, the Continuity Equation, the Energy Equation, and a Turbulence Model (see &quote CFD: Fig 2: An unstructured grid of the interface The Governing Equations&quote between a front wheel and the ground, generated Fig 3: The front quarter of the generic Benetton by GeoMesh. Note the changes in cell density. B195, modelled with an unstructured grid of 250,000 following Fig 10) Note the phrase Compare this with Fig 7. cells. Compare this with Fig 10. 'dealing with', instead of 'solving'. The Continuity Equation, for Typical applications would be the analysis of a rear example, is used as a constraint on the solution: it is wing assembly, the cooling system, the front section not directly solved. The Navier-Stokes equation on its of the racecar, and even the entire racecar. own has been (and still is) the source of much hairIncidentally, the last could take a few days (or even pulling in the fluid dynamics community, because of weeks) to achieve a solution, depending on the the difficulty in finding solutions for various types of complexity and size of the model. flows. The addition of the Turbulence Model and the Energy Equation does not help the situation and that It is likely that the files for the afore mentioned is one of the reasons why the CFD community is so problems have been drawn using EDS Unigraphics, rarefied. which is the de rigueur CAD software at Benetton. RAMPANT can accept the IGES standard files which There are relatively few people in the world who EDS Unigraphics is capable of creating. Failing this, voluntarily attack problems that are guaranteed to the problem of constructing the geometry for the give them a headache. As of this moment, you can simulation is not trivial: but let us just say that, with count in this group the scientists at Fluent Europe, EDS Unigraphics or 'GeoMesh', RAMPANT's and most definitely the aerodynamics analysts at preprocessor, it should not be very difficult. Benetton Formula. This is not normally the case, because the The latest technical partner of Benetton, Sheffield, preprocessors in many CFD packages are poor and I UK based Fluent Europe was founded in 1983 by Dr. speak from experience. I still get the feeling when I
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geometry, using the nodes set by the user as reference. In GeoMesh, there is a choice of the type of grid that can be used for the computation. Essentially, it lies between structured and unstructured grids. Fig 2 and Fig 3 show unstructured grids.
Fig 4: An example of an arbitrary structured grid

It used to be the case that structured grids, as shown in Fig 4 (where the Fig 5: A rendered double-element rear wing and section through the unstructured grid encounter some preprocessors that primitive element is a quadrilateral), the scientists are somehow trying to were the first and last word in CFD. take revenge on certain users for not This is because they are being more brave, and taking the Navier-Stokes computationally efficient. But, as with most equations by their numerical horns. situations, there is an obligation accompanying this computational privilege. That obligation, for complex Fortunately, the scientists at Fluent are not in this geometries, could demand that the user takes long sadistic group. GeoMesh is an edited and licensed periods of time to create a grid for a problem. Some version of a software called ICEM/CFD/CAE, which problems have taken years to attain a grid, and only is designed by Control Data Systems Inc. It is hours to run. This is because CFD and CAD probably the most powerful and easy-to-use preengineers do not always communicate as they should. processing software of its kind in the world. GeoMesh has been specifically tailored to create an interface with RAMPANT. The way in which Fluent has addressed the preprocessor problem shows its aversion to reinventing the wheel, which is a good attitude to have. So, let us assume that a member of the Benetton aerodynamic staff can have a cooling system, say, 'constructed' on his computer screen in one hour. At this point, the model would normally consist of lineand-point entities. A depiction of this stage (showing the entire racecar) is represented in Fig 1. The concept now has to be discretised. Discretisation, also known as 'gridding', is the next phase. Gridding involves dividing up the surface of a model into tiny elements. The analyst selects each line entity, applying on each a finite number of the intersections of cell corners - called 'nodes'. The node density would normally increase towards areas of high fluid dynamic gradients, corners, surfaces and areas of interest, as in Fig 2. At the end of this process, a command is given to tell GeoMesh to place nodes throughout the entire
Fig 6: Streamlines/streaklines through a duct and heat exchangers on the RH side of the generic Benetton B195 (top), and temperature distribution through the same duct and heat exchangers (below).

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With the use of complex mathematical schemes, RAMPANT is now told to crunch numbers. It discretises the governing equations - the NavierStokes Energy and Continuity Equations - and implements the Turbulence Model, which is arguably the most important part of the calculation. An understanding of the concepts is indispensable, and CFD is not some thing that your average mechanic-cum wind tunnel operator-cum-designer is realistically going to pick up as he or she goes along. If a Grand Prix team has no one who understands

Fig 7: Velocity vectors (left) and pressure distribution (right) about an idealized front wheel.

Unstructured grids can be a dream come true. A close look at Fig 5 reveals that triangles slice through the basic elements, which are tetrahedrals. Unstructured grids can have just about any elemental shape including quadrilaterals, tetrahedrals, and hexahedrals. The basic element shape selected (the 'primitive') is subjective: it is determined in part by the overall shapes that are involved in the simulation. The benefit of an unstructured grid lies in its convenience. Such elements can map the most complex geometries with ease. However, they can also be computationally inefficient. In part, this inefficiency has been addressed over the last decade or so by the mathematical treatment of the elements and through faster computers. Indeed, unstructured grids have long been an acceptable technique, and have become an indispensable part of CFD. At some stage, the boundary conditions of the problem have to be imposed. This has to be done because they define the problem - without them, a simulation would be meaning less, as well as impossible! Let us say that the user at Benetton, with mouse in hand, scurries across the screen, selecting various entities of the model, and defines an inlet for a radiator duct intake for his cooling system. This is then assigned a theoretical velocity in 3-D space. Other similarly treated parts of the model might be wall entities (for the duct walls), heat sources with temperatures (for the radiator faces), and pressure boundaries (for the duct exhaust). The properties of the fluid or fluids are also entered at this stage.

Fig 8: Spatial pressure distribution about a triple-element upper rear wing assembly.

these concepts, and is not prepared to hire some one who does, then they should stick to wind tunnels because abusing a CFD code is just as bad as not using one, and may even be a whole lot worse. The aerodynamicist who is experimental in his or her nature is duty bound to understand and master the concept of scale-effects, boundary layers and turbulence - for starters - if he or she is to make good use of a wind tunnel. Such knowledge will be a sound foundation upon which to interact with his or her numerical counterpart. When the simulation is completed, it can be viewed with a postprocessor. RAMPANT is capable of analysing the completed flow simulation in several ways. They include velocity vectors, streamlines/streaklines, line or filled contours, profiles, iso-surfaces and x-y plots.
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Copyright 1999 Fluent Inc.

Examples of some of these are shown in Figs 6-10 although, for the sake of secrecy, in certain cases the relevant colour maps have been removed. It is also possible to examine the forces on individual components, provided the grid has been constructed so that the software can distinguish between these components. It is in situations like this that a multiblock grid becomes indispensable. In a multiblock grid, adjacent components will share the same nodes, but the characteristics of each block can be markedly different with regard to direction of propagation, density and number of cells. For example, the front wing mainplane/endplate junction on the racecar could be part of a multiblock grid

floating around at Benetton Formula HQ in Enstone. It will be interesting to see how the path that Benetton has chosen bears up against the other three Formula 1 teams who do currently use CFD, which must remain nameless. Having chosen one of the several credible ways to implement CFD, Benetton will reach the stage (if it has not already) where it will have correlated numerical simulations with experimental tests in the wind tunnel, and on the fullsize race car. This is not an easy task. But once the team has achieved this stage, the level of its aerodynamic analysis compared with that of the rest of the Formula 1 grid, save three other teams, will bring it a formidable and extremely 'unfair' advantage. We should applaud these teams until our hands are sore,because nothing should disgust us more than a team knowingly doing only half a job, and nothing give us more pleasure than a team placing all the resources in place and doing the job right. The relation ship between Benetton and Fluent shows that both parties realise the complex nature of the physics of a Formula 1 racecar, and that they are sincerely trying to address them. Such an attitude is the difference between a successful Grand Prix team and one that is for ever doomed to be a backmarker.

Fig 9: Surface pressure distribution for a double-element rear wing assembly

CFD: The Governing Equations

The main governing equations for Navier Stokes CFD calculations are the Navier-Stokes Equations themselves, the Continuity Equation, the Energy Equation, and a Turbulence Model. The Navier-Stokes Equations describe the conservation of linear momentum, in three dimensions. The Continuity Equation essentially says that the mass flow rate into a specific volume must equal the mass flow rate out of that volume. Such a volume could be one cell in the flow domain. This is used to ensure that CFD codes do not play God, by creating extra fluid where it could not and should not exist. The Energy Equation is used to determine that energy is neither created nor destroyed in the fluid system, according to the Third Law of
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where the mainplane is formed of one block, and the endplate formed of another, while sharing the same nodes where they abut. Assuming that such a grid was constructed for the geometry depicted in Fig 3, then the user could simply select mainplates, flaps and end plates, and direct RAMPANT to display the forces on each component, or the resultant force acting on a group of components. Information of this kind would be useful, say, in the design of front wing mounting posts. These posts could then be made as stiff as possible, but only as strong (and therefore as heavy) as they need to be. The analysis suite provides a formidable array with which to determine 'the way to go' or, as the case might have it, 'the way not to go'. In any event, the possibilities are essentially limited by the imagination - and there seems to be a lot of that
Copyright 1999 Fluent Inc.

Thermodynamics. In addition to these three important equations, there are three more which must be solved by RAMPANT so that the fluid flow can be comprehensively described. These are a Stress Tensor, the Equation of State, and a Constitutive Equation. The task of the Stress Tensor is to relate stress to the rate of shearing in the flow. The Equation of State serves to relate the density to the temperature and pressure. Finally, the Constitutive Equation relates heat to temperature and pressure. In order to arrive at a solution, RAMPANT must solve a representation of each of these equations for each cell in the computational domain of the problem, many times over. It solves the equations in a way that makes it suitable for analysing compressible flows. In the fluid dynamics world, a compressible flow in air is generally taken to be one where velocities occur of at least 30% of the speed of sound (Mach=0.3 or greater). M=1 is the speed of sound, which at sea level is generally taken to be 340m/sec, or1224kmph (760mph). Below M=0.3, air is treated as incompressible: that is to say, the density is not affected by changes in pressure. There are certain areas by changes in pressure. There are certain areas on a Formula 1 car where M can be 0.3 or greater, so it is good that RAMPANT can potentially address these cases. As if this mathematical cornucopia was not enough, there is also the concept of a Turbulence Model to consider. Turbulence Models exist because mankind, at this moment, is incapable of solving the NavierStokes Equations directly in anything approaching a reasonable time. This is because a direct solution would involve discretising the flow domain more densely than was done for the calculations shown in Fig 3 and Fig 4. Such a dense grid would be needed to capture the nature of the flow in its entity. Now, bear in mind that turbulence length scales can be anywhere from microscopic to several metres. To capture a process completely and accurately would

mean that the smallest cell size would be 10~ metres long and wide, and the largest would be in the order of 1 metre square, or greater. Ouite a difference, yes? If you think the grids in Fig 3 and Fig 4 are impressive, then imagine the nightmare of a grid that would be required (and the time involved) to capture the flow phenomena varying from the microscopic to those that could be made visible with the naked eye. The density of the grid for the double-element wing problem in Fig 4 could easily increase, conservatively, by a factor of ten. And there is currently no computer capable of performing the calculations! Through very involved physical and mathematical theories, Turbulence Models provide RAMPANT with a starting point, if you will, for various parameters such as velocities, viscosity, rates of turbulent dissipation and others. The scientific basis of these models is not entirely computational. They all have some basis in experimental work. This is reflected by the fact that you can get certain seemingly arbitrary terms popping up from time to time in their derivation. The Turbulence Model used in the simulationsgiven here is called the Renormalisation Group Theory k-e model.The available list of Turbulence Models in RAMPANT reads like a short Who's Who of headaches. There is the standard k-e model, the Reynolds Stress Model, and Renormalistaion Group Theory, and they address various types of flows via such characteristics as the amount of separation, recirculation, and convection due to heat sources, to name a few. The types of flows that are found in and around Formula 1 cars, together with the array of Turbulence Models, strike fear into the hearts of the most courageous of scientists in the CFD world!

Parallel Processing at Benetton

Fluent Europe has provided Benetton with a version of RAMPANT that is capable of using several processors to perform the numerically intensive simulations. This concept, known as parallel computing, is a very efficient and effective technique
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A computational problem can be run in the foreground or the background. Running in the foreground means that the problem is the dominant computational activity. Running in the background would allow the workstations to be used simultaneously for other tasks, which is exactly what is done on occasion. Most of the simulations, how ever, are run at night so that RAMPANT has exclusive use of the processors, aside from other necessary utility functions that the workstations have to perform. For this task and for problems of acertain size, this network could compete with some of the world's low-end supercomputers with regard to millions of floating point operations per second (MFLOPS), and that is not a factor to ignore.
Fig 10: Velocity vector plot of the front quarter of the generic Benetton B195, showing the velocity map in metres/second (top) and static pressure contours, with pressure map in Pascals (bottom).

to solve problems that are computationally intensive. Benetton Formula uses a network of ten Hewlett Packard workstations that are comparable to the HP9000 or the Sun Sparc 20 series. The exact specification of the machines is subject to Benenon's natural reticence. However, these terminals, running in parallel, are capable of achieving 90% computational efficiency in solving a Odeg yaw case (car straight ahead) for the front half of the Benetton B195. Computational efficiency in performing a calculation is measured by comparing the time required by multiple processors with the time required by a single processor. When an object is precisely parallel to the airflow, normally the computational requirements can be reduced by modeling only the LH or RH half of the object. This case, therefore, used an unstructured gridof one half of the front of the racecar, consisting of 250,000 cells. The solution was achieved overnight.

The author thanks Dr. Matthew Wheeler of the University of London Computlng Centre for his assistance in the preparation of the post processing images for this article.

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