Translationally Accelerating Wings in Ground Effect

A Numerical Study

Master thesis (2022)

Authors

C. Pathanadka Mechanical Engineering

Contributors

G.E. Elsinga Fluid Mechanics - Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering (supervisor 1)
M.J.B.M. Pourquie Fluid Mechanics - Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering (supervisor 1)
E.F.J. Overmars Fluid Mechanics - Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering (supervisor 1)
J. Westerweel Fluid Mechanics - Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering (supervisor 2)
A.H. van Zuijlen Aerodynamics - Aerospace Engineering (supervisor 2)
Faculty
Mechanical Engineering
Copyright: © 2022 Chinmaya Pathanadka
More Info
expand_more

Published Date

22-02-2022

Language

English

Reuse Rights

Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.

Faculty

Mechanical Engineering

Abstract

Aerodynamics has played a significant role in the industry of motorsports in improving the performance and handling of the race car. Rob Smedley, the former head of vehicle performance at Williams Racing stated that - "Where teams have problems is when their development or simulation environment – so CFD [Computational Fluid Dynamics] or wind tunnel – doesn’t describe well what happens in reality (although in truth, no-one’s wind tunnel correlates absolutely 100%)". One of the reasons for this poor correlation could be arising from the fact that, in real life on track scenarios, the race cars undergo accelerating, decelerating, or cornering motion which can have a different influence on the aerodynamics of a race car which is not accounted for in the wind tunnel and simulation environment where a steady constant flow is employed. This research aims to numerically investigate the flow past the front wing of a Formula One car in ground effect subjected to accelerating and decelerating flows to understand the trends in the aerodynamic performance.

A scaling analysis is performed to determine the relevant non-dimensional numbers that influence the flow for translationally accelerating airfoils and two dimensionless numbers are arrived at, namely, the Reynolds number and the Froude number. Numerical investigations are carried out for translationally accelerating wings in ground effect to determine the influence of these dimensionless numbers on the aerodynamic forces.

Transient simulations were performed on a two-dimensional airfoil and a three-dimensional wing in ground effect subjected to translational acceleration and deceleration. The Shear Stress Transport (SST) based on k-ω was employed to model the turbulent flow. The results from the numerical investigations revealed a temporary change in the downforce and the drag force coefficients, as the airfoil (or wing) in ground effect is subjected to translational acceleration (or deceleration). In this study, the mechanisms that contribute to this temporary change in the aerodynamic force coefficients are discussed.