Aerodynamic Study of Formula SAE Car

Abstract

This paper describes the design and CFD analysis of a Formula SAE car. A numerical study of a rear engine SAE racecar is presented. The focus of the study is to investigate the aerodynamics characteristics of a SAE race car with front spoiler, without front spoiler and with firewall vents. Formula SAE is a college level student design competition where every year students of universities all over the world build and compete with open-wheel formula-style race [1]. Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) INDIA racecar focuses on developing a simple, lightweight, easily operated open chassis vehicle. Compliance with SAE rules is compulsory and governs a significant portion of the objectives. The aerodynamics study of the SAE car is made to reduce the drag force. The study was performed using the CFD package. The main goal of this study is to enhance the stability of the vehicle and reduce the drag. With this the track performance will be increased also the resistance of air to the vehicle gets reduced. The CFD analysis is done on full scale model. The aerodynamic study is conducted in the ANSYS Fluent software to perform a turbulent stimulation (using k - ɛ model) of the air flow on the SAE car. The results are graphically shown with co – efficient of drag, velocity contour.