Академический Документы
Профессиональный Документы
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OF AN AERODYNAMIC
SHELL ECO-MARATHON
VEHICLE BODY
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As an international student in exchange for a year at the HAN University of Applied
Sciences, it is my pleasure to present this technical report as a demonstration of my
achievements during my stay in this school. However, more important than to
notice what I could accomplish is to notice that nothing would have been possible
without the help and advice of many special people.
Therefore, I would like to thank Mr. Voortman for his guidance as my student
counsellor, Mr. Horn for following closely my journey the whole year, helping me
several times and always showing me kindness and patience (specially patience!),
and Mr. Zwart for his valuable classes and always clever advisory during the
developing of this project.
I would also like to thank the always friendly and helpful members of the HAN
Hydromotive team, who received me in their group as an all-time member since the
first day, for making themselves available to answer all my questions, for trying
their best to make me comfortable all the time, and for allowing me to be part of a
great experience with them during the Shell Eco-marathon Europe 2015 in
Rotterdam.
My heartfelt thanks goes to my friends and fellow students Quintin Pet and Jelle Den
Blaauwen, who made this project possible by helping me in the critical times and
sharing their knowledge with me in the kindest way. A special thanks to my fellow
international students Matheus Alves and Carolina Bai, for all the support, incentive
and productive debates during this project.
Generally, I would like to thank all the staff working for the HAN, for the UFABC, and
for the Science Without Borders program, for giving me this amazing learning
opportunity.
Finally, I would like to thank my colleagues, friends and family, for supporting me on
the idea of coming to the Netherlands in an exchange program, and to Wayne
Tammer and his family, who received me so well and gave me a home away from
home.
PREFACE
The Shell Eco-Marathon is an annual competition held around the world, sponsored
and promoted by Shell, that embraces the challenges raised by energy use in the
personal transportation sector as it requires of its participants to be on the edge of
innovation to build vehicles capable of achieving the highest possible fuel efficiency.
The events history stretches back over seventy years: starting as a simple
scientists bet, now it is the environment for official world records.
Seeking to be part of this history, the faculty of automotive engineering of the
Hogeschool van Arnhem en Nijmegen founded the HAN Hydromotive: a highly
motivated team, with professors and students working together to develop and
research on hydrogen fuel cells and compete with a hydrogen vehicle in the Urbanconcept class of the Shell Eco-Marathon.
Along the years, different vehicles have been designed and built by the HAN
Automotive students in the team. One outstanding model is the Arval Inspire II,
which further than being 3rd place in the Shell Eco Marathon Europe 2014,
overcame the challenge of being road legal. To have a license plate is a great
achievement, specially performing so well during the competition, but it also brings
the downside of keeping the vehicle from performing its most as security items end
up compromising the lightweight and aerodynamic body design.
As the challenge of being road legal and also in the top 3 of most fuel efficient
vehicles in its class is achieved, the team now wants to build a new car for the
future Shell Eco-Marathon years. Free of the obligation of being road legal, this
vehicle will be developed thinking only on the highest possible performance for fuel
efficiency.
The focus of this project then is to design the new vehicles body thinking only on its
aerodynamic performance. Parameters as frontal area and drag coefficient will be
compared to the existing vehicle and other concepts to enhance the improvement
achieved.
A more aerodynamic body reflects in less fuel consumption as it lowers the forces
opposing to the vehicles movement. The tractive force supplied by the engine is
employed in overcoming these forces, which include the aerodynamic drag.
Therefore, less drag requires less power. Aerodynamic forces can contribute up to
near 40% of the total required power in normal driving conditions.
This project, when completed, will give other students the opportunity to work on
the vehicles body by validating the design through wind tunnel testing of a scale
model, evaluating the forces acting on the body through finite element analysis,
3
choosing its materials and productions methods and also integrating the vehicles
body to other vehicles systems.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements.................................................................................................... 2
Preface....................................................................................................................... 3
Table of contents........................................................................................................ 4
Introduction................................................................................................................ 6
1
Literature Review................................................................................................. 7
1.1
1.2
1.3
Vehicle aerodynamics..................................................................................10
1.3.1
Aerodynamic drag................................................................................. 11
1.3.2
Drag area............................................................................................... 12
1.4
2
Body Structure................................................................................................... 14
2.1
2.2
2.3
Design constraints....................................................................................... 16
2.4
Body Design....................................................................................................... 18
3.1
3.2
3.3
Flow simulations.......................................................................................... 21
3.3.1
Tools...................................................................................................... 21
3.3.2
Settings................................................................................................. 22
3.3.3
Results................................................................................................... 22
3.4
4
Body Detailing.................................................................................................... 28
4.1
Simulations settings..................................................................................... 28
4.2
Nose shape.................................................................................................. 31
4.3
4.4
Trailing-edge thickness................................................................................33
4.5
4.6
4.7
Mirrors.......................................................................................................... 40
4.8
4.9
Final Body........................................................................................................... 45
Future steps....................................................................................................... 50
Conclusion.......................................................................................................... 50
References................................................................................................................ 51
Appendices............................................................................................................... 52
A.
B.
C.
Plan of approach.......................................................................................... 52
D.
Simulation reports........................................................................................ 52
E.
Contact information..................................................................................... 52
INTRODUCTION
Along the years, different hydrogen-powered vehicles have been designed and built by the
HAN Automotive students in the HAN Hydromotive team to compete in the Urban Concept
class of the Shell Eco-marathon. The Urban Concept class requires that the vehicle shows,
besides efficiency, an architecture that look as much as possible as a real-world vehicle.
The previous built and current model, Arval Inspire II, conquered the 3 rd place in the Shell
Eco Marathon Europe 2014 while overcoming the challenge of being road legal, achieving its
goals. Even though its performance is remarkable, being road legal brings the downside of
keeping the vehicle from performing its most as meeting the authorities requirements
compromise the lightweight and aerodynamic body design.
The team now has a new goal: to build a new car for the future Shell Eco-Marathon years,
free of the obligation of being road legal, with the highest possible performance for fuel
efficiency.
In this new goal the vehicle aerodynamics is a driven part, as a streamlined body reflects in
less fuel consumption by lowering the forces opposing to the vehicles movement. The
power required from the engine is employed in overcoming these forces, therefore, less
aerodynamic drag requires less power from the engine, which is reflected in the lower fuel
consumption.
Having this relation into account, this project is settled to design a new vehicles body that
attends the requirements for low aerodynamic drag. What factors are influencing the bodys
drag and therefore how its shape should be are questions that this project wants to answer.
This report will show the design process and choices for the new vehicles body thinking only
on its aerodynamic performance and it is build up as the following:
Chapter 1 gives an overview of aerodynamics basics, searching the driven parameters to
have a well streamlined body. Chapter 2 determines the vehicles topology by defining its
targets characteristics and design constraints. The topological model is the basis for the
development of different body concepts.
Chapter 3 presents a few concepts that arise from the vehicle basic architecture and their
performance according to flow simulation. In this chapter the optimum body shape can be
found. Chapter 4 shows how the optimum body shape is detailed until the final body is
completed. In this chapter features as interference drag, mirrors, internal flow, windows and
driving stability are studied.
Chapter 5 presents the final model of the vehicles body and its aerodynamic performance
according to flow simulations. Here an overview of the final model can be found. In Chapter
6 parameters as frontal area, wetted area and drag coefficient will be compared to the
existing vehicle and other concepts to qualify the improvement achieved.
Chapter 7 shows the possibilities for future works on the vehicles body as validating the
design through wind tunnel testing of a scale model, evaluating the forces acting on the
body through finite element analysis, choosing its materials and productions methods and
also integrating the vehicles body to other vehicles systems.
Chapter 8 is the final chapter and contains the conclusion of the project. Following this
chapter, the Shell Eco-marathon rules, a list of symbols and relations used in the presented
calculations and some literature topics can be found in annex. Also, contact information is
available in annex D for any questions or further explanation.
1 LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter introduces the fundamentals relevant to the body design of a fuel
efficient vehicle. As estate before, the aerodynamic features of the vehicles body
interfere in its fuel consumption, this chapter is dedicated to demonstrate how.
A deep lesson on the subject would require a lot more than a mere chapter to be
given. This chapters goal is just to give the common reader a context on the
matters that will be read further in this report, therefore making it more accessible
to a wider range of audiences.
1.1BASIC
FLUID MECHANICS
1.2GENERAL
PRINCIPLES OF AERODYNAMICS
Aerodynamics is the way air moves around things. The rules of aerodynamics
explain how an airplane is able to fly. Anything that moves through air reacts to
aerodynamics. A rocket blasting off the launch pad and a kite in the sky react to
aerodynamics. Aerodynamics even acts on cars, since air flows around cars.
(Nasa.gov, n.d.)
As read above, aerodynamics is concerned about the interaction of a fluid (as air)
with a solid (as a car) when either one or the other is in motion. It measures the
interference caused by the geometry inserted on the originally free flow.
This measurements are made in terms of weight, lift, thrust and drag. [Ref 13]
10
11
1.3VEHICLE
AERODYNAMICS
The most important aerodynamic force for a land vehicle moving forward is the
aerodynamic drag. Secondarily, lift/downforce has its role in driving stability by
keeping the vehicle from moving upwards or deviating from its desired trajectory
due to inertial forces. Downforce contributions are only beneficial above certain
speeds. Special attention should be paid to the floor or belly pan shape of the
vehicle since the proximity with the ground makes this area under the vehicle to
behave as a Venturi tube [Ref. 2 and 3]. This phenomena is also known as road
effect and can be counteracted with design measures explained in detail further in
this work.
12
C d V 2 Aref
Fd =
2
Fd :total drag force
C d : drag coefficient
:fluid density
V : flow speed
13
1.4AERODYNAMICS
Some factors have to be taken into consideration in order to calculate the fuel
usage of a vehicle. The most important of them is the force opposing the movement
of the vehicle as it states the necessary power to keep moving forward at a certain
speed. This can be observed in the following equation. [Ref 16]
On a land vehicle moving constantly forward, the rolling resistance of the tires and
the aerodynamic drag are the only two forces opposing its movement. According to
literature, this relation evolves with the cruise speed of the vehicle, as shown in the
figure bellow.
15
2 BODY STRUCTURE
This chapter shows how the knowledge acquired from literature is brought together
with the Shell Eco-marathon rules in order to achieve a basic model of the new
vehicles body. Different existent concepts have been studied during this phase of
the development to bring inspiration and also a better understanding of the real
application of some rules as design constraints.
2.1DEFINING
The vehicle architecture is defined as a group of major decisions about how the
vehicle should be that are made during early stages of the project to avoid
forbidden or unrealistic solutions and set, along with the goals, the priority areas
where most effort should be employed. Besides controlling project resources, a
basic and strict vehicle architecture is also useful to give the designer a more
concrete vision of design possibilities by serving as input for the initial designing
cycles. It also controls the progression towards the target figures, verifying if they
are reachable and/or being reached.
The concern of this work is to design a vehicles body with low aerodynamic drag to
compete in the urban-concept class of the Shell Eco-marathon, accordingly some
design figures as drive wheels, brake wheels, and number of axles are of low
concern for the given goal and will not be developed in this report. However, the
figures number of wheels, track width, steer wheels, wheelbase, and ground
clearance are of importance and developed as follows.
Number of wheels: Urban Concept vehicles must have exactly four wheels,
which under normal running conditions must be all in continuous contact with the
road. A fifth wheel for any purpose is forbidden. [Ref. 1]
Track width: The track width must be at least 100 cm for the front axle and 80 cm
for the rear axle, measured between the midpoints where the tires touch the
ground. [Ref. 1]A larger track width increases the roll-over resistance of the
vehicle. On the other hand, it can also increase the frontal area of the vehicle. As
the goal of this work is to design the vehicles body around its aerodynamic
performance, minimizing the frontal area will be prioritized over maximizing rollover resistance and therefore the track width will be kept to the minimum allowed.
According to literature, bodies with reduced cross section area in the rear are more
likely to succeed on restoring the pressure around the tailing edge of the vehicle
and avoid flow separation, keeping the pressure drag low. Due to this fact, the rear
16
track width will be kept shorter than the front track width and also at the minimum
allowed.
Steer wheels: The Shell Eco-marathon rules determine that only front wheelsteering is allowed for prototype class vehicles. However, it makes no mention to
urban class vehicles leaving this choice to the designer. There are plenty of up and
downsides of different steering systems, and as explained above, the aerodynamic
performance is considered priority over other factors. Even so, some observance
must be kept to avoid excessive increase in complexity and/or weight in the future
stages of development of the vehicle.
The major figure is that a steer wheel inside the vehicle requires room to turn
without touching the vehicles body. The vehicle must comply with a minimum
turning radius, which implies in turning angles for each wheel. Turning the wheel by
a given angle will increase the room taken by it inside the vehicle's body and
therefore make it wider.
The Shell Eco-marathon rules determine that The turning radius must be less than
6 m. The turning radius is the distance between the center of the circle and the
external wheel of the vehicle. The external wheel of the vehicle must be able to
follow a 90 arc of 6 m radius in both directions. [Ref. 1]. To comply with this rule,
the necessary turning angle of each wheel needs to be calculated. These
calculations are influenced by the chosen steering system.
A four-wheel steering system decrease the necessary turning radius at low speeds
and can be used to improve driving stability in high speeds or manoeuvrability in
tight spaces. However, it increases the frontal area of the vehicle whilst turning and
require room at the back of the vehicle, which is not available due to the
aerodynamic considerations that suggest a gradual decrease of cross section area
towards the tail. A two-wheel steering system will be used instead.
Steer wheels located at the front increase frontal area while steer wheels located at
the rear require space not available in the vehicle. Some literature search shows
that the configuration with rear steer wheels also has some problems in maintaining
the correct heading and steering stability. Accounting all the above mentioned
reasons, a frontal two wheel-steering system is chosen as the best available option.
As a result of this choice, both scenarios in with all wheels or only the rear wheels
are contained inside the vehicles body are possible. The increase in frontal area
given by having the front wheels contained in the vehicles body is determined by
the minimum needed turning angle. On the other hand, the drag of an exposed
wheel system is difficult to model analytically, but literature presents relevant
empirical data that shows unneglectable contribution to the total drag [Ref 2]. Both
options will be analysed further in this work, being preferable to keep a model with
all wheels contained inside the vehicles body.
17
2.2DEFINING
The following parameters are held by the Arval Inspire II, current model retiring in
2015, which drives 61.9 km/kWh. The new vehicle target parameters must lead to
an improved performance.
18
2.3DESIGN
CONSTRAINTS
Two major sources are taken into consideration for design constraints in this work:
race regulations and aerodynamics.
From the race regulations all minimum and maximum sizes and forbidden shapes
for the vehicles body are provided. The vehicle must be in compliance with all Shell
Eco-marathon rules. For a detailed reading please go to Appendix B.
From aerodynamics the vehicles body should be shaped in order to disturb as
minimum as possible the flow around itself. It should not generate lift or downforce
as well as keep the aerodynamic drag the lowest. Starting from sketch can be a
difficult task for the designer since the possibilities are infinite. However, the
literature offers a great amount of reliable data to guide the sketch of initial shapes
and therefore have a reduced number of design cycles. A summing up of these data
can be found in the next section of this chapter.
Special attention is now given to the steer wheels since, as specified before, they
require room to turn without touching the vehicles body and thus are also a source
of design constraints. The following calculations show the biggest turning angle
required to follow the minimum turning radius specified by the Shell Eco-marathon
rules for the steering configuration chosen in section 2.1 of this chapter.
2.4THE
TOPOLOGICAL MODEL
In this section a summarized list of the body desired characteristics, functions and
shapes is given to form a live document called in this work The Requirements List.
19
This documents purpose is to condensate the long literature review into a quick
consultation source to guide the designer during early design cycles and to enhance
the bodys target parameters. As the highly iterative design cycles evolve, this list
is updated to guide the next cycle and/or answer identified questions.
Following the guidelines explicit above, the next figure shows the topological model
of the vehicles body. All sketches will be made around this topological model. An
anatomically correct human figure is included to give a perspective of how the real
pilot would fit in the car.
20
3 BODY DESIGN
3.1PRELIMINARY DESIGN HARD POINTS
Based on the information offered by the vehicles topological model, free-hand
sketches and clay models of different possible solutions were made. These
representations help the designer to evaluate the complexity of the shapes and
their feasibility. As mentioned before, time is the most valuable resource in this
work. The correct notion of what solutions are worth employing further effort on
development is not only helpful but mandatory.
21
The following sections present in more detail the development of some of the
shapes seem above.
3.2SHAPE
DESIGN
FEW CONCEPTS
A shape design is the result of several progressive steps. Once the preliminary
shape is established, consecutive model iterations based on that design are
developed and tested using CFD analysis. The results of the simulations are taken
into consideration in the subsequent iterations to support or modify the shape until
an optimum body shape is considered achieved. The criteria used to define what is
an optimum basic shape are explained in detail in section 3.4 of this chapter.
The translation of the preliminary design phase into the CAD application is showed
in the next paragraphs.
Shape 1
Shape 1 is inspired on the low Reynold numbers airfoil S8037. It contains
modifications on the early third to achieve smaller cross section area at the tailing
edge at the same time the minimum height required for the drivers compartment
and the maximum length of the vehicle are respected. The torpedo shape is
modified into a shouldered body in order to reduce the frontal area. The transition at
the shoulder line is meant to be as smooth as possible to minimize interference
drag. The body is designed as a single solid with smooth curved shapes and
continuous surface instead of a group of bodies. Further than acting on interference
drag, this design choice improves the surface quality of the model, allowing the
boundary layer to develop properly. After the highest point, the boundary layer is
induced into turbulent to resist the pressure gradient longer without separation. By
now, this model has no optimized belly-pan nor wheel fairings, which will be studied
in the detailing phase.
22
23
Shape 3
Shape 3 is inspired on a fellow competitor of the Shell-Eco marathon. The Japanese
prototype class car attending by the name of Fancy Carol shows a non-conventional
solution for surfacing and also good results. [Ref 15] This concept has been
translated to the urban-concept class rules, resulting in the model seen below.
24
3.3FLOW
SIMULATIONS
3.3.1 Tools
SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation is a class of CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics)
analysis software (called Concurrent CFD) that is fully embedded in the mechanical
design environment, for all general engineering applications.
(IVANOV, 2014)
The choice on the CFD software was made based on a few factors. The first factor is
that Solidworks Flow Simulation was used in the development of the Arval Inspire II.
Using the same solver would eliminate an extra layer of inconsistency when
comparing both models.
The second factor is that Solidworks Flow Simulation is already embed in the CAD
tool used for the development of the models, which guarantees that no
inconsistencies due to compatibility issues when importing and meshing the
geometry will occur.
25
The final factor is that Solidworks Flow Simulation provides, for the needed typed of
simulation, a satisfactory precision level with lower computational time, lower
computational resources and easy user-friendly interface. [Ref 12]
Due to the use of a Cartesian-based mesh coupled with some engineering
techniques and methods implemented in SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation, numerical
calculations reach acceptable accuracy on far coarser meshes when compared with
traditional CFD codes. Due to this fact, users can make calculations of fluid flow and
heat transfer for very complex 3D cases with relatively modest computational
resources.
(IVANOV, 2014)
As the flow conditions to be simulated dont require any advanced boundary
condition, the simplicity of Solidworks Flow Simulations proves not to be a roadblock.
3.3.2 Settings
The settings report for all simulations can be found in Appendix C.
It is worth noticing that in this phase of the design the qualitative flow analysis is
more meaningful than quantitative results. As a consequence of short
computational time being preferred over great precision, no effort was employed on
detailed meshing manually. The computational domain was defined based on the
geometry size, guaranteeing that the flow is fully developed around the geometry
before interacting with it and bringing additional boundary influences.
3.3.3 Results
The following figures show the performance of the presented models in flow
simulations. An example of how flow simulation results contribute to the iterative
design is given in figure 26.
26
27
28
29
Figure 26: The pressure generated by the nose shape influences on flow
detachment and wake length.
3.4THE
Time is defined as the most valuable resource in this work. To avoid spending this
resource in activities that bring little added value to the final vehicles body, a
procedure of developing and optimizing the body for a basic optimum shape,
obtained from the simulated designs, is adopted. This can be done by choosing a
winner shape or by combining different winner features into an optimum shape.
The following table shows the key features of the models studied in this chapter.
30
Model
Shape 1
Shape 2
Shape 3
Frontal Area
Surface Area
0.97 m2
7.37 m2
2
0.83 m
11.11 m2
2
1.01 m
9.87 m2
Table 1: Summary;
Flow Attachment
Good
Good
Poor
The first and main goal is to minimize the pressure drag, therefore a model with
good flow attachment and smaller frontal area is preferred. Secondarily, a model
with less surface area is the best option, since it reduces the viscous drag. Next, a
model with less interference drag is advisable. No induced drag is desired.
Based on the fact that at this stage the models can yet be changed and improved,
the best model will be the one that can adapt to different approaches finding a
combination that results in lowest aerodynamic drag.
The results show that the optimum basic shape is Shape 1, as it has less
interference drag sources, a fair wetted area and at the same time requires less
modifications to improve its flow attachment and frontal area.
4 BODY DETAILING
Once the basic shape is achieved the efforts are put on improving this shape,
adding its secondary features, and gaining confidence on the results. This chapter is
dedicated to show this process.
4.1SIMULATIONS
SETTINGS
In this design phase modifications are even more sensitive to the input obtained
from flow simulations, therefore, special attention on how these simulations are held
is required.
Boundary conditions
Up to this point, the road was considered an Ideal Wall, acting as a symmetry
condition. From now on, the road is treated as a real wall in movement, simulating
the vehicles motion.
Computational domain
As previously stated, the computational domain has to be defined in the proper size
to fully develop the flow conditions and avoid bringing additional unwanted
boundary effects with it, without raising the computational time to unpractical
figures. [Ref 11]
31
In this stage, simulations are held with a computational domain sized as at least 2.5
times
the
vehicle
sizes
in
the
respective
direction.
The mesh density should be high enough to capture all relevant flow features.
The mesh adjacent to surfaces and wall should be fine enough to resolve the
boundary layer flow. Quadric cells are preferred.
Aspect ratio: 1 is ideal, less than 0.2 means that the cell is degenerated.
Where the flow is expected to be multidimensional an aspect ratio near to 1
is kept. In the areas where flow is fully developed and essentially onedimensional the cells can be stretched along the flow direction.
Smoothness: Adjacent cells can vary in size by no more than 20%.
The skewness of the cells will be maintained at 0 (best).
32
The mesh total size is kept between 10 5 (intermedium) and 106 (large) to
save computational time. Simulations with smaller and bigger meshes can be
held to test the results sensibility.
The following images show the initial mesh and the refined mesh. All settings can
be found in Annex C.
33
4.2NOSE
SHAPE
The shear forces are greater at the nose section and therefore, the nose shape is
critical to ensure that laminar flow is achieved on the belly-pan and the top of the
vehicle. Laminar flow is desirable since the friction created by turbulent flow can be
10 times greater than the friction created by laminar flow, minimizing drag. [Ref 2
34
and 3] The body contour should be gentle and its surface should be smooth and
seamless to help providing gentle acceleration of the boundary layer in this region.
However, at vehicles height peak the boundary layer should be forced into
turbulent flow to ensure greater length without separation due to adverse pressure
gradients. Turbulent flow is not only much less likely to suffer separation, as figure
34 shows, but can also be used to improve cooling as it transfers energy in all
directions (therefore hot components are advisable to be placed near this region of
the vehicle). [Ref 2 and 3]
Figure 34: Left Laminar boundary layer; Right Turbulent boundary layer;
35
36
4.3SURFACE
4.4TRAILING-EDGE
THICKNESS
A thin trailing-edge results in smaller wake area, which is great for restoring the
pressure at the end of the vehicle and thus reduce pressure drag.
There are some different techniques in use to determine the maximum thickness of
the trailing-edge for given body sizes. For example, some assume that given the
ideal trailing edge as a perfectly sharp end, the maximum thickness of the real
trailing edge should impact the main-body drag in 1% or less. [Ref 2] Another way is
37
angle. This allows the vehicle to be shorter if necessary with less impact in wake
area. On the other hand, it changes the cambering of the vehicle, which may create
induced drag. More details on this matter are given further in the next subsections.
39
40
4.5JUNCTIONS
4.6GROUND
The competition rules state that a ground clearance of at least 10cm must be kept.
It also says that the drivers compartment should have at least 88cm of height,
while the whole vehicle should be between 100cm and 130cm. [Ref. 1]
The vehicles belly pan (or floor) along with the ground create a tunnel-like structure
that restrains the flow according to its shape and size. This effect is called Venturieffect and it states that as the stream tube gets thinner, the local velocities have to
increase to fulfil the laws of inviscid potential flow, mass conservation and the
assumption of air as a fluid of incompressible flow. According to Bernoullis principle
one can infer that if the local speed increases, than the local pressure has to
decrease. This pressure difference on the top and bottom of the vehicle create a
suction effect towards the ground, or negative lift, also known as downforce. [Ref 2,
3, 7]
41
42
4.7MIRRORS
The competition rules state that the driver must have access to a direct arc of
visibility ahead and to 90 on each side of the longitudinal axis of the vehicle
without aid of any optical (or electronic) devices such as mirrors, prisms, periscopes,
etc. Also, the vehicle must be equipped with a rear-view mirror on each side of the
vehicle, each with a minimum surface area of 25 cm (5cm x 5cm), to provide
indirect view of 60cm high poles spread out every 30 in a 4m radius half-circle
around the vehicle. This mirrors cannot be replaced by electronic devices. [Ref 1]
43
To attend these rules without adding appendages to the vehicle, the proposed
solution is to keep the wind shield as big as necessary to keep the mirrors inside the
drivers compartment. As visibility studies are out of the scope of this work, the
windshield design is yet to be developed and must be calculated taking into account
the compliance of visibility rules with inside mirrors to be produced.
There are available examples of teams using this same solution as it can be seen in
references [Ref. 2, 4 and 10].
4.8OPENINGS
AND GAPS
No detailed study related to windshield, wheel system, ventilation and door gaps
has been conducted. However, some advisory for the production is provided as
follows.
Gaps, bumps, and internal flow greatly increase the drag of a vehicle, maximum
attention must be paid on the design of these features.
44
a NACA duct has to be sized for the airflow for efficient performance. NACA
ducts can be also used for exit-duct.
Place the inlet in such position that it cant ingest the boundary layer or trip it
prematurely;
Existing gaps (such wheel-wells) can be also used both for inlet and outlet;
The Shell Eco-marathon has designated gaps in the rules for providing the drivers
compartment and the fuel cells compartment with ventilation. [Ref. 1]
45
Wheel system
The drag from the wheel system is formed by the following factors [Ref. 2]:
An extended literature review was done on the subject and the following decisions
were made.
In this work the wheel wells and steer cut-outs are developed but a fully sealed
system is considered. This solution can be observed in the 1993 World Solar
Challenge champion cars system [ref solar]: integrating a rotating thin bely pan
plate that acts sealing the hourglass cut.
Literature suggests that a cover of around 60% of the wheels is appropriate to
minimize its drag contribution. [ref 6]
Windage lossess were not simulated as a simplified wheel system is used according
to guidance.
4.9WHEEL
46
No optimum wheel fairing was found during the development of this work and
therefore not added; The following figures show how the adding of wheel fairings
conflicted with the main body geometry increasing the vortices generation under
the vehicle and therefore its drag. Theres room for improvement as appropriated
wheel fairings can still be researched and added.
Figure 50: (Speed) Example of the effect of non-optimum wheel fairings; Upper:
without fairings; Lower: with fairings; Bigger vortices can be observed with a nonoptimum wheel fairing influence.
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Figure 51: (Vorticity) Example of the effect of non-optimum wheel fairings; Upper:
without fairings; Lower: with fairings; Higher vorticity can be seen for longer lengths
with a non-optimum wheel fairing influence.
The air under the floor encounters the wheel in an angle, disturbing the flow after
that point. The pressure differential created by the rotating wheel system might as
well disturb the flow under the vehicle increasing its induced drag. The natural
conclusion from these problems is that the vehicles floor (or belly pan) can yet be
improved according to the wheel fairing developed and the windage effect.
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Figure 52: Example of the effect of non-optimum wheel fairings; Upper: without
fairings; Lower: with fairings; No significant improvement can be credited to the
non-optimum wheel fairing that justifies it increase in friction and interference
drag..
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5 FINAL BODY
A summed up presentation of the final body achieved during this work, regarding all
the information given beforehand, is given below.
50
51
Figure 57: Belly pan detail; Wheel well and sealing suggestions;
52
53
The results show that a total force of 4.02N is achieved and therefore, according
the equation 1, the drag coefficient of the vehicle is Cd = 0.12. Since the main
source of drag is the pressure drag, the reference area used in the calculations is
the frontal area and measures 0.79m2. The surface area is 10.36 m2.
The drag area, used to compare the vehicle to others in a meaningful way, is Cd x
A = 0.095.m2
Cd
0.136
0.110.0750.120
Aref
0.95
0.880.2540.79
7 FUTURE STEPS
The completion of this work opens several opportunities for other students willing to work on
the development of the vehicle. Besides the already mentioned topics, during this work
some other issues concerning aerodynamics were noticed, as listed:
As the reader might notice, this report contains some orientation about all these subjects as
they were considered by the designer even if not detailed studied or developed.
8 CONCLUSION
This work was developed trying to answer the question: How a Shell Eco-marathon Urban
Concept class cars body should be to achieve its maximum aerodynamic performance?
Along the months of its completion, a full main-body basic design was achieved, followed by
a refined, detailed main-body which is the main final product of this work.
54
The success of the achieved design can be measure as its estimated generated drag is lower
than the designs used by the team and also its close competitors, however wind-tunnel test
validation is necessary for ensure the results.
The final Cd obtained for this model is 0.120 and the final drag area is 0.095m2 . This
means a 26.5% improvement over the current vehicle model and a 2.1% improvement
over its closer competitor.
The model is still open to modifications to better accommodate any changes that might be
necessary due to production choices or rules alterations.
55
REFERENCES
[1] Shell Eco-marathon 2015 Official Rules, Chapter 1;
[2] TAMAI, Goro;
The Leading Edge: Aerodynamic design of ultra-streamlined land vehicles;
ISBN 0-8376-0860-0
[3] HUCHO, Wolf-Heinrich;
Aerodynamics of Road Vehicles: From fluid dynamics to vehicle
engineering;
ISBN 0-7680-0029-7
[4] SANTIN; ONDER; BERNARD; ISLER; KOBLER; KOLB; WEIDMANN, GUZZELLA;
The Worlds Most Fuel Efficient Vehicle: Design and development of PAC-II
car;
ISBN 978-3-7281-3134-8
[5] OBIDI, T. Yomi;
Theory and application of aerodynamics for ground vehicles;
ISBN 978-0-7680-2111-0
[6] SCIBOR-RYLSKI, A. J.;
Road Vehicle Aerodynamics;
ISBN 0-7273-1802-0
[7] KATZ, Joseph;
Race car aerodynamics: Designing for speed;
ISBN 0-8376-0142-8
[8] KERSTEN; WEIJERS; van LUNTEREN; AUIER; KAISER; KAMPHOF; OTTENHOF;
GEORG;
Eindverslag ontwerp nieuwe body periode 2011-2012;
[9] BRUIJSTEN, Mike;
Verbetering van de aerodynamische eigenschappen aan de Arval Inspire II;
[10] http://www.cci-brest.fr/files/DossierpresseCityJoule.pdf
[11] AHAMAD; ABO-SERIE; GAYLARD;
Mesh optimization for ground vehicle aerodynamics;
Jaguar-Land Rover, Coventry Univerisity, UK; 2010;
[12] IVANOV; TREBUNSKIKH; PLATONOVICH;
Validation Methodology for Modern CAD-Embedded CFD Code: from
Fundamental Tests to Industrial Benchmarks;
Mentor Graphics Corporation, Dassault Systems; Russia; 2014;
[13] https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/airplane/bga.html
[14] http://www.shell.com/global/environment-society/ecomarathon.html
[15] http://www.fc-design.jp/fancycarol/tec/1_car97.htm
[16] BROWAND, F.;
Reducing Aerodynamic Drag and Fuel Consumption;
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APPENDICES
A. LIST
OF FIGURES
RULES
OF APPROACH
D. SIMULATION
REPORTS
57