Abstract
A detailed project has been carried out to investigate the aerodynamic performance of a Formula 1 car front wheel. Experimental drag measurements were carried out on a 40% scale rig representing the front right-hand quarter of a generic Formula 1 car, with features such as the front wing and car body modelled accurately to generate a suitable flowfield around the wheel. Smoke flow visualization gave valuable insights into the major flow features and enabled understanding of how the wheel aerodynamic perform- ance might be improved. Further visualization was carried out using a fully 3D CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) analysis of the test rig geometry, using state-of-the-art in-house geometry handling and CFD facilities based around an unstructured Navier–Stokes solver. Drag measurements were successfully obtained for a large range of typical car configurations, including front wing endplate variations. The experimental and computational flow visualization enabled a new front wing geometry to be designed, which gave a significant reduction in the drag of the wheel.
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