Going faster, higher and longer in sport with CFD

Abstract

Digital computers have increased dramatically in both speed and capacity over the last 5-10 years. More and more powerful machines are being used routinely on the desks of design engineers. In parallel with this growth of computer platform power and usage, more sophisticated software is being developed and commercially marketed to exploit these advances. One such area is Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) where the fundamental non-linear differential equations that describe fluid flow, heat transfer and turbulence phenomena are now routinely solved numerically for a range of industrial applications from hypersonic flows around rockets to low speed cooling of electronic components in computers. Some sports and sporting teams have been keeping abreast of the rapid rise of CFD technology over recent years. In the vanguard has been motor racing teams such as the Benetton Formula 1 team who started to use CFD as a design tool to improve the aerodynamics of their championship-winning cars four years ago. Very soon other teams followed suit and a new era in F1 design was ushered in. Now, a number of teams use CFD to model their cars computationally prior to wind tunnel testing to both optimise their proposed designs and understand the flow fields around new chassis configurations. CFD is proving to be more cost effective than conventional approaches. It also provides a wealth of data for aerodynamicists to analyse and produces rapid project turnaround times in this highly competitive field of sport. Now ten configurations can be studied in the same time as two would have been looked at before. Areas of sport that are showing the benefits of computational methods for improving equipment design and techniques are yachts (both the hull and sail designs), ski jumpers, golf and even the humble frisbee. With reference to the above examples, this paper aims to highlight the approach to these problems designers have adopted using software supplied by Fluent Europe Ltd, the market leader in commercial CFD software. Nowadays, many designers and aerodynamicists can ask the “what if …?” question and get answers before a ball is struck, a yacht built or a racing car model constructed.