Advances and assessment of the Ring of Fire concept for on-site cycling aerodynamics

Advances and assessment of the Ring of Fire concept for on-site cycling aerodynamics

de Martino Norante, Luigi (TU Delft Aerospace Engineering)

Sciacchitano, Andrea (mentor)
Terra, Wouter (mentor)

Delft University of Technology

Aerospace Engineering | Aerodynamics and Wind Energy

Supported by Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), Domain Applied and Engineering Sciences (TTW), project 15583: "Enabling on-site sport aerodynamics with the ring of fire"

2018-06-07

Aerodynamics investigations in speed sports generally consist of measurements of aerodynamic loads through wind tunnel experiments. Lately, a new technique has emerged, known as the Ring of Fire. It is the only drag measurement technique capable of retrieving flow field data on-site, by using Large-Scale PIV. In this Ring-of-Fire project a Low-Speed PIV system is implemented in an indoor facility and used to test an amateur cyclist in both pedalling and non-pedalling conditions. Twenty cyclist’s passages can be executed in thirty minutes and provide a mean drag area with an uncertainty equal to 2%. Drag differences equal to 6% are measured between two postures. Limitations arise due to the lack of repeatability of seeding density and cyclist’s position. With the contribution of this research, the Ring of Fire becomes a more mature technique to investigate speed sports aerodynamics, with future applications to curvilinear trajectories and multiple athletes.

large-scale PIV
Ring of Fire
Cycling aerodynamics
HFSB

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:2b8874e9-5100-4e76-bae0-c3d1ad74798d

2018-06-30

Student theses

master thesis

© 2018 Luigi de Martino Norante