Towards a Novel Strategy for Safety, Stability and Driving Dynamics Enhancement During Cornering Manoeuvres in Motorsports Applications

Abstract

With aerodynamics research being primarily focused on drag and lift mitigation strategies till date, engrossed attention has not been received by the event of numerous accidents caused due to negotiation of turns at high speeds by formula and motorsport cars. We present an unexplored and innovative concept of variable side-flap mechanism with a peculiar orientation for introducing three components of forces in the event of turning. numerical simulations have been performed at two notorious slant angle configurations of the generic ground vehicle body, namely 25° and 35°. In order to analyse the inception of variable forces and flow changes introduced by the flap mechanism, RANS modelling has been performed on nine cases of flap angles from 10° to 90° at six instances of Reynolds numbers between 1.98 × 10 6 and 2.98 × 10 6. in addition to the introduction of variable drag and downforce components leading to decrement in braking effort and enhancement in overall stability and safety characteristics based on steering input, our proposal holds potential for improving driving dynamics by imparting mild oversteer characteristics due to a flap-induced vortex. To conclude, a safe regime of flap operation in terms of flap angle based on drag, downforce and oversteering dynamics has also been recommended. The automotive industry has received a significant amount of attention from researchers worldwide in improving the aerodynamic characteristics of various classes of vehicles, starting from high-speed motorsport cars to heavy load carriers. With the advancement in computational facilities, it has now become possible for simulating the proposed design changes and modifications before arriving at the final design that can be implemented. One of the few objectives of research has been in reducing drag and lift forces associated with the vehicles in motion. This has led to some remarkable aerodynamic designs that we see nowadays in the motorsports industry. Motorsport cars are subject to very high speeds, as a result of which, they experience tremendous amount of lift forces. Front and rear wings are fitted on these cars that generate downforce in order to maintain the overall stability at high speeds 1. The problem exists in the case when such cars have to negotiate turns and twisty sections on the racetrack. Centrifugal force acting on a car is directly proportional to the square of velocity during turn negotiation, and consequently, drivers need to slow their cars down in order to not lose stability. They rely on the downforce generated by front and rear wings and tire friction for successfully negotiating the turn. While Formula 1 wings and tires generate massive amounts of downforce and friction, respectively, several cases of accidents have been reported till date wherein, the drivers lost control of their vehicles while negotiating sharp bends. While such incidents pose a direct threat to life and property, implementation of design additions specifically focused on turn negotiation and the dynamics involved for mitigati...

Computational Analyses of the Effects of Wind Tunnel Ground Simulation and Blockage Ratio on the Aerodynamic Prediction of Flow over a Passenger Vehicle

“…Even though CFD capabilities have greatly been improved with the rapid growth of computational power, showing much better correlation with wind tunnel measurements, the latter is still considered the favored reference, due to the real physical models and real air-flow conditions [16]. CFD simulations, however, can provide a much deeper insight into the flow field interacting with the vehicle [17,18], and can be a very effective tool during the design optimization process [19]. Researchers have demonstrated the capabilities of CFD in delivering valuable aerodynamic predictions, and even replicating the wind tunnel tests with certain mesh resolutions, boundary conditions, and physical modeling.…”