Aerodynamic Study of a

Realistic Car
W. TOUGERON

Tougeron CFD Engineer © 2016

AERODYNAMIC STUDY OF A REALISTIC CAR

Abstract
This document presents an aerodynamic CFD study of a realistic car geometry. The aim is to
demonstrate the efficiency of open-source CFD around complex geometries. The geometry re-
pair and preparation, the meshing generation, the solving of the fluid domain using steady and
unsteady models as well as the post-processing of results are presented in details.

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AERODYNAMIC STUDY OF A REALISTIC CAR

Content

List of Symbols..................................................................................................5

Introduction........................................................................................................6

1. Purpose..........................................................................................................7
1.1. Geometry.....................................................................................................................7
1.2. Case.............................................................................................................................7

2. Geometry Preparation...................................................................................9
2.1. Tool Used.....................................................................................................................9
2.2. Element Removal........................................................................................................9
2.3. Car Body Detail Removal............................................................................................9
2.4. Hole Removal..............................................................................................................9
2.5. Air Intake Adaptation..................................................................................................9
2.6. Wheel Simplification...................................................................................................9
2.7. Front Area Measurement.........................................................................................10

3. Meshing........................................................................................................10
3.1. Tool Used...................................................................................................................10
3.2. Mesh Refinement......................................................................................................10
3.3. Prismatic Layers.......................................................................................................12
3.4. Mesh Size..................................................................................................................12
3.5. Meshing Time...........................................................................................................12

4. CFD Computation (Steady).........................................................................12

4.1. Tool Used...................................................................................................................12
4.2. Models.......................................................................................................................12
4.3. Boundary Conditions................................................................................................12

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AERODYNAMIC STUDY OF A REALISTIC CAR

4.4. Convergence.............................................................................................................15
4.5. Mesh Validation........................................................................................................15
4.6. Computation Time....................................................................................................15

5. CFD Computation (Unsteady).....................................................................17

5.1. Models.......................................................................................................................17
5.2. Convergence.............................................................................................................17
5.3. Computation Time....................................................................................................20

6. Results.........................................................................................................20
6.1. CX and CZ values........................................................................................................20
6.2. Aerodynamics Remarks...........................................................................................20
6.2.1. Flow Separation......................................................................................................................20
6.2.2. Oscillating Effect.....................................................................................................................21
6.2.3. Frequency Estimation.............................................................................................................21

Conclusion.......................................................................................................23

Illustration Index..............................................................................................24

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AERODYNAMIC STUDY OF A REALISTIC CAR

List of Symbols
CX Drag coefficient of the car

CZ Lift coefficient of the car

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AERODYNAMIC STUDY OF A REALISTIC CAR

Introduction
The purpose of this document is to show an example of aerodynamic CFD study around a real -
istic car. All steps, from the geometry preparation to the post-processing are detailed.

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AERODYNAMIC STUDY OF A REALISTIC CAR

1. Purpose
1.1. Geometry
The geometry considered here was a Subaru Impreza WRX car, whose photo is presented below.

http://www.hdcarwallpapers.com/subaru_impreza_wrx_2012-wallpapers.html

Figure 1: The Subaru Impreza WRX

The CAD model of this car was found in STEP format on the GrabCAD website at the follow-
ing URL:

https://grabcad.com/library/subaru-impreza-wrx-1

This CAD model is visible at the left side of the next figure. Let's notice anyway that this CAD
model was designed to be used for making beautiful pictures, not to fit the exact original shape
of the car. In consequences, it is probable that this aerodynamic study does not fit with the real
car aerodynamics.

1.2. Case
We proposed here to estimate the CX and CZ values of the car at a speed of 120 km/h. Since the
case was symmetrical, only the half of the geometry was considered.

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AERODYNAMIC STUDY OF A REALISTIC CAR

Figure 2: The input CAD model after import (left) and after repair (right).

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AERODYNAMIC STUDY OF A REALISTIC CAR

2. Geometry Preparation
2.1. Tool Used
The tool used to prepare the geometry was Salome.

2.2. Element Removal

As visible in the previous figure, the original CAD model contained unnecessary details, like the
tailpipe, door handles, ribs and so on. So, the first step was simply to remove these elements.
Also, the rear spoiler and the roof air intake were removed as well for simplicity.

2.3. Car Body Detail Removal

Then, unnecessary details of the car body itself were also removed, like recesses present at the
rear license plate, door handle or window positions. All of this removals necessitated the build-
ing of new surfaces to fill holes let by missing parts. As visible in the previous figure, the result
was perfectly smooth.

2.4. Hole Removal

Since the original CAD model contained gaps between car body parts (between doors, between
the front door and the fender, etc.), there were filled with additional faces.

2.5. Air Intake Adaptation

Then, we focused on the upper air intake. First, its geometry was trimmed so as to insert a ver-
tical face on which to apply the outlet boundary condition. Then, a fillet was created on it ex-
tremely sharp leading edge so as to help the mesher avoid the generation of bad cells at this
position.

2.6. Wheel Simplification

Finally, wheels were highly simplified, replacing them by cylinders having smooth corners and
being slightly trimmed at their base so as to prevent, once again, the mesher to generate bad
cells at this position.

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AERODYNAMIC STUDY OF A REALISTIC CAR

2.7. Front Area Measurement

Once the geometry was prepared, its front area was measured by extracting boundary
edges, projecting them on the front plane, creating a face from them (in blue in the following
figure) and measuring its area. The front area for the half-geometry was:

2
S=1.14 m

Figure 3: Front area of the final geometry.

3. Meshing
3.1. Tool Used
The tool used to generate the mesh was cfMesh.

3.2. Mesh Refinement

A box refinement was first apply so as to catch the whole car wake. Then, a surface refinement
was made on the whole car geometry, with a thickness of 20 cm. A finer surface refinement
was made on the mirror as well as on gaps separating the wheels and the car body. Feature
edges where then refined with different finenesses. Finally, additional box refinements were
made around the mirror so as to catch its own wake as well as the flow between it and the car
body. The final mesh can be seen in the figure of the next page.

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AERODYNAMIC STUDY OF A REALISTIC CAR

Figure 4: Final mesh.

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AERODYNAMIC STUDY OF A REALISTIC CAR

3.3. Prismatic Layers

Prismatic layers were also added on the whole car body and wheels. The total thickness
equaled one time the local cell size. The prismatic layer contained 5 layers with a ratio of 1.2
and a first layer thickness chosen so as to have a y+ value between 30 and 200.

3.4. Mesh Size

The final mesh contained around six million cells.

3.5. Meshing Time

The total meshing time took around 10 min, using 8 CPUs.

4. CFD Computation (Steady)

4.1. Tool Used
First, a steady computation was done using OpenFOAM.

4.2. Models
The simpleFoam solver was used coupled with a kOmegaSST model for the turbulence, which
is a good choice for external flows with flow separation. The k and omega values were set us-
ing a turbulent intensity of 1% and a turbulent length scale of 5% of the car length.

4.3. Boundary Conditions

A velocity inlet condition and a pressure outlet condition were applied respectively on the up -
stream and downstream boundary faces. Symmetry conditions were applied on the surround-
ing surfaces (top, front, back, bottom). Pressure outlet conditions were applied on the air in-
takes, defining there an arbitrary pressure of -10 Pa. Wall conditions were applied on the car
body and the wheels, with a rotating velocity defined on the wheels.

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AERODYNAMIC STUDY OF A REALISTIC CAR

1E+0

1E-1

1E-2

1E-3 Ux
Residual

Uy
1E-4 Uz
p
1E-5 k
omega
1E-6

1E-7
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500
Iteration

Figure 5: Residual history for the steady-state computation.

1,6

1,4

1,2

1
Mass Flow (kg/s)

0,8
intake 1
0,6 intake 2
intake 3
0,4

0,2

0
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500
Iteration

Figure 6: Mass flow history for air intakes.

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AERODYNAMIC STUDY OF A REALISTIC CAR

0,4

0,35

0,3

0,25

0,2
Cx

0,15

0,1

0,05

0
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500
Iteration

Figure 7: CX history for the steady-state computation. The red line represents the average for last 1000
iterations.

0,6

0,5

0,4

0,3

0,2

0,1
Cz

0
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500
-0,1

-0,2

-0,3

-0,4
Iteration

Figure 8: CZ history for the steady-state computation. The red line represents the average for last 1000
iterations.

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AERODYNAMIC STUDY OF A REALISTIC CAR

4.4. Convergence
The residual history shown a limited convergence, as visible in the figure 5, since velocity resid-
uals could not fall below 1e-5. This was due to the unsteady nature of the flow around the car.
A look at the air intake mass flow history (figure 6) allows to see that there values converged
well. On the contrary, the CX and CZ histories (figure 7 and 8) are clearly revealing an unsteady
behavior of the flow.

4.5. Mesh Validation

After computation, the mesh could be validated.

Both figures of the next page are showing non interpolated plots of the velocity and pres-
sure fields close to the car. One can see they are very smooth.

In addition, the following figure shows a plot of the y+ value, which was well mostly con-
tained into the desired range.

Figure 9: Plot of the y+ on walls at the end of the steady-state computation.

4.6. Computation Time

The total computational time for the steady computation was of 11.5 hours, using 8 CPUs.

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AERODYNAMIC STUDY OF A REALISTIC CAR

Figure 10: Plot of the velocity field close to the car at the end of the steady-state computation.

Figure 11: Plot of the pressure field close to the car at the end of the steady-state computation

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AERODYNAMIC STUDY OF A REALISTIC CAR

5. CFD Computation (Unsteady)

5.1. Models
Since the flow was seen to be unsteady, an unsteady computation using the pimpleFoam
model was carried out starting from the steady-state results. No change was done into bound-
ary conditions.

A maximum Courant number of 500 was set, resulting of a time step of around 0.0022s and
a mean Courant number of 0.008.

5.2. Convergence
The residuals convergence was pretty good, as visible in the following figure, excepted for the
pressure. This residual could have been diminished by reducing the time step. Nevertheless, in
the scope of this study, we preferred to increase the number of internal iterations at each time
step. Final internal iterations presented an “initial” pressure residual decreased by a factor of
10. In addition, the CX and CZ histories (figures 13 and 14) were smooth enough to validate the
size of the time step.

1E+0
1E-1
1E-2
1E-3
1E-4 Ux
Residual

1E-5 Uy
1E-6 Uz
p
1E-7
k
1E-8
omega
1E-9
1E-10
0 0,5 1 1,5 2 2,5 3 3,5 4 4,5 5
Time (s)

Figure 12: Residual history for the unsteady computation.

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AERODYNAMIC STUDY OF A REALISTIC CAR

0,35

0,34

0,33
Cx

0,32

0,31

0,3
0 0,5 1 1,5 2 2,5 3 3,5 4 4,5 5
Time (s)

0,35

0,34

0,34

0,33
Cx

0,33

0,32

0,32
4,5 4,6 4,7 4,8 4,9 5
Time (s)

Figure 13: CX history for the unsteady computation. The red line represents the average from the instant
t=1s to the end. The data at the right of the black line is reproduced at the bottom to show the time step.

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AERODYNAMIC STUDY OF A REALISTIC CAR

0,46

0,44

0,42

0,4

0,38
Cz

0,36

0,34

0,32

0,3
0 0,5 1 1,5 2 2,5 3 3,5 4 4,5 5
Time (s)

0,44

0,42

0,4

0,38
Cz

0,36

0,34

0,32

0,3
4,5 4,6 4,7 4,8 4,9 5
Time (s)

Figure 14: CZ history for the unsteady computation. The red line represents the average from the instant
t=1s to the end. The data at the right of the black line is reproduced at the bottom to show the time step.

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AERODYNAMIC STUDY OF A REALISTIC CAR

5.3. Computation Time

The total computational time for the unsteady computation was of 20 hours, using 8 CPUs.

6. Results
6.1. CX and CZ values
The average values of CX and CZ taken during the last 4 seconds were:

C X =3.31
C Z =3.67

6.2. Aerodynamics Remarks

6.2.1. Flow Separation
Beside the simple measure of the values of CX and CZ, the CFD simulation allowed to make
some remarks about phenomenons occurring in the airflow.

The figure below shows the velocity field in the symmetry plane with streamlines. One can
see the recirculation area is very small behind the car (blue area), which is good for the aerody-
namics of the car. On the other hand, a strong flow separation occurs just before the wind-
shield.

Figure 15: Plot of the velocity field and streamlines on the symmetry plane at the end of the unsteady
computation.

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AERODYNAMIC STUDY OF A REALISTIC CAR

In the next figure, one can see an iso-surface for U = 15 m/s. Here, one can see that the sep-
aration before the windshield visible in the previous figure originates in fact at the upper air in -
take leading edge position.

Figure 16: Plot of an iso-surface at U=15m/s at the end of the unsteady computation.

6.2.2. Oscillating Effect

The reader can look at the animated flow at this web address:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gad6En3fuk4

When visualizing the animated flow, one can see that the flow separation on the air intake
becomes oscillating and affects the whole care wake.

Besides, one can see other sources of oscillating separation, like before the front wheel.
Nevertheless, it is visible that the frequency of oscillations of the upper separated flow is lower,
and so more undesirable, than others.

6.2.3. Frequency Estimation

A discrete Fourier transform of the CX time history (see the next figure) allowed to measure the
main frequencies felt by the car body. On can see a peak at a frequency of 12 Hz and another at
5.75 Hz. In the case of a real-life car development project, it could be relevant to make sure this
low frequency peak is not problematic.

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AERODYNAMIC STUDY OF A REALISTIC CAR

If so, the aerodynamics of the upper air intake should be improced.

Figure 17: Discrete Fourier transform of the CX history.

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AERODYNAMIC STUDY OF A REALISTIC CAR

Conclusion
We proposed here to carry out a realistic car aerodynamic CFD study using open-source soft-
wares. The input CAD model could be repaired and prepared so as to facilitate the rest of the
study. The mesh was quickly generated, and provided good quality of CFD results and conver-
gence. Both steady and unsteady computations were carried out successfully. The post-pro-
cessing allowed to detect possible problematic frequencies of forces exerting on the car be-
cause of bad aerodynamics of the upper air intake.

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AERODYNAMIC STUDY OF A REALISTIC CAR

Illustration Index
Figure 1: The Subaru Impreza WRX...........................................................................................................7
Figure 2: The input CAD model after import (left) and after repair (right)...............................................8
Figure 3: Front area of the final geometry...............................................................................................10
Figure 4: Final mesh.................................................................................................................................11
Figure 5: Residual history for the steady-state computation................................................................13
Figure 6: Mass flow history for air intakes..............................................................................................13
Figure 7: CX history for the steady-state computation. The red line represents the average for last
1000 iterations..........................................................................................................................................14
Figure 8: CZ history for the steady-state computation. The red line represents the average for last
1000 iterations..........................................................................................................................................14
Figure 9: Plot of the y+ on walls at the end of the steady-state computation......................................15
Figure 10: Plot of the velocity field close to the car at the end of the steady-state computation......16
Figure 11: Plot of the pressure field close to the car at the end of the steady-state computation.....16
Figure 12: Residual history for the unsteady computation...................................................................17
Figure 13: CX history for the unsteady computation. The red line represents the average from the
instant t=1s to the end. The data at the right of the black line is reproduced at the bottom to show
the time step.............................................................................................................................................18
Figure 14: CZ history for the unsteady computation. The red line represents the average from the
instant t=1s to the end. The data at the right of the black line is reproduced at the bottom to show
the time step.............................................................................................................................................19
Figure 15: Plot of the velocity field and streamlines on the symmetry plane at the end of the
unsteady computation.............................................................................................................................20
Figure 16: Plot of an iso-surface at U=15m/s at the end of the unsteady computation.....................21
Figure 17: Discrete Fourier transform of the CX history.........................................................................22

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