An improved active drag reduction system for formula race cars

Author(s):  
Mauro Dimastrogiovanni ◽  
Giulio Reina ◽  
Andrea Burzoni

Drag reduction systems are largely employed in racing car competitions to help drivers in overtaking manoeuvres, ensuring a good show to the public. This paper presents a full-design approach to drag reduction systems that includes the computational fluid dynamics estimation of the forces acting on the rear wing, the dynamic analysis of the drag reduction system mechanism and the whole vehicle behaviour through the simulation of an overtaking manoeuvre. For the purposes of this work, a novel drag reduction system mechanism is proposed that features lower aerodynamic disturbance and comparable manufacturing costs than those of drag reduction systems of the main Formula categories.

2006 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xin Zhang ◽  
Willem Toet ◽  
Jonathan Zerihan

We review the progress made during the last 30years on ground effect aerodynamics associated with race cars, in particular open wheel race cars. Ground effect aerodynamics of race cars is concerned with generating downforce, principally via low pressure on the surfaces nearest to the ground. The “ground effect” parts of an open wheeled car’s aerodynamics are the most aerodynamically efficient and contribute less drag than that associated with, for example, an upper rear wing. While drag reduction is an important part of the research, downforce generation plays a greater role in lap time reduction. Aerodynamics plays a vital role in determining speed and acceleration (including longitudinal acceleration but principally cornering acceleration), and thus performance. Attention is paid to wings and diffusers in ground effect and wheel aerodynamics. For the wings and diffusers in ground effect, major physical features are identified and force regimes classified, including the phenomena of downforce enhancement, maximum downforce, and downforce reduction. In particular the role played by force enhancement edge vortices is demonstrated. Apart from model tests, advances and problems in numerical modeling of ground effect aerodynamics are also reviewed and discussed. This review article cites 89 references.


Meccanica ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 55 (10) ◽  
pp. 1917-1947
Author(s):  
J. E. Guerrero ◽  
M. Sanguineti ◽  
K. Wittkowski

Abstract Traditional winglets are designed as fixed devices attached at the tips of the wings. The primary purpose of the winglets is to reduce the lift-induced drag, therefore improving aircraft performance and fuel efficiency. However, because winglets are fixed surfaces, they cannot be used to control lift-induced drag reductions or to obtain the largest lift-induced drag reductions at different flight conditions (take-off, climb, cruise, loitering, descent, approach, landing, and so on). In this work, we propose the use of variable cant angle winglets which could potentially allow aircraft to get the best all-around performance (in terms of lift-induced drag reduction), at different flight phases. By using computational fluid dynamics, we study the influence of the winglet cant angle and sweep angle on the performance of a benchmark wing at Mach numbers of 0.3 and 0.8395. The results obtained demonstrate that by adjusting the cant angle, the aerodynamic performance can be improved at different flight conditions.


2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. N. N. Ghazali ◽  
Y. H. Yau ◽  
A. Badarudin ◽  
Y. C. Lim ◽  
Jane W. Z. Lu ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Vol 223 (20) ◽  
pp. jeb226654
Author(s):  
Brooke E. Flammang ◽  
Simone Marras ◽  
Erik J. Anderson ◽  
Oriol Lehmkuhl ◽  
Abhishek Mukherjee ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTAnimal-borne video recordings from blue whales in the open ocean show that remoras preferentially adhere to specific regions on the surface of the whale. Using empirical and computational fluid dynamics analyses, we show that remora attachment was specific to regions of separating flow and wakes caused by surface features on the whale. Adhesion at these locations offers remoras drag reduction of up to 71–84% compared with the freestream. Remoras were observed to move freely along the surface of the whale using skimming and sliding behaviors. Skimming provided drag reduction as high as 50–72% at some locations for some remora sizes, but little to none was available in regions where few to no remoras were observed. Experimental work suggests that the Venturi effect may help remoras stay near the whale while skimming. Understanding the flow environment around a swimming blue whale will inform the placement of biosensor tags to increase attachment time for extended ecological monitoring.


2021 ◽  
Vol 927 (1) ◽  
pp. 012029
Author(s):  
Yoga Satria Putra ◽  
Evi Noviani ◽  
Muhardi ◽  
Azrul Azwar

Abstract Micro-hydropower plants have become one of the alternative solutions to meet the electricity needs of people in remote villages that the public electricity company has not reached. However, the performance of a micro-hydro system has to be continuously developed. This research aims to improve the performance of a micro-hydro system by examining the effect of the slope of the penstock on the increase in electrical power. The penstock slope is varied with diverse angles, namely θ = 50 °, 60 °, 70 °, 80 °, and 90 °. Five simulations of water flow in the penstock for five slope angles were constructed using the open-source CFD software, i.e., OpenFOAM. We calculate the electric power for the five simulations aforementioned. The calculation results show that the variation of the penstock slope can affect the increase of the electric power of a micro-hydro system. The highest electric power occurs at a maximum slope, θ = 90 °.


2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 212-224
Author(s):  
Muhammad Abid ◽  
Hafiz Abdul Wajid ◽  
Muhammad Zohair Iqbal ◽  
Shayan Najam ◽  
Ali Arshad ◽  
...  

This paper presents design of aerodynamic downforce generating devices (front wing, rear wing and diffuser) to enhance the performance of the Formula Student Race Car using numerical and experimental studies. Numerical results using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) studies were primarily validated with the experimental results performed in the wind tunnel. It was concluded that the use of a downforce package can enhance the performance of the vehicle in the competition.


Author(s):  
Joel Guerrero ◽  
Kevin Wittkowski ◽  
Marco Sanguineti

Traditional winglets are designed as fixed devices attached at the tips of the wings. The primary purpose of the winglets is to reduce the lift-induced drag, therefore improving aircraft performance and fuel efficiency. However, because winglets are fixed surfaces, they cannot be used to control lift-induced drag reductions or to obtain the largest lift-induced drag reductions at different flight conditions (take-off, climb, cruise, loitering, descent, approach, landing, and so on). In this work, we propose the use of variable cant angle winglets which could potentially allow aircraft to get the best all-around performance (in terms of lift-induced drag reduction), at different flight phases. By using computational fluid dynamics, we study the influence of the winglet cant angle and sweep angle on the performance of a benchmark wing at Mach numbers of 0.3 and 0.8395. The results obtained demonstrate that by adjusting the cant angle, the aerodynamic performance can be improved at different flight conditions.


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