ANALYSIS OF F1 CAR COMPONENTS

Since the introduction of the supercomputers in the 1980's, the use of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) for solving fluid flow problems has increased dramatically as a numerical tool in many areas of engineering. The development of Wind Tunnel technology that Formula 1 offers to the world, important though it has been, pales into insignificance alongside the rapid growth of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). With a wind tunnel, experiments are made by blowing wind over a real object in a controlled environment and measuring the aerodynamic forces that arise. In CFD, the same experiment may be conducted in the form of a computer simulation.It is probably no surprise that the F1 industries use the various successful CFD programmes (e.g. CFdesign, Fluent, etc.) in their design process. For a sustained period of around 20 years, the teams in Formula 1 have invested money into the development of CFD systems and programs, as it has been clear for a long time that this tool would be a useful prerequisite for success in the sport and racing car industry, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is an emerging science in the aerodynamic design area; during the last decade aerodynamicists found a growing interest in using computers and CFD methods to simulate wind tunnel tests or track conditions. Briefly CFD codes simulate the flow over a car through mathematical modelling and solving of a discrete model. To inspect the aerodynamics of a F1 car, a full vehicle model should be implemented. Aerodynamics is fundamentally non-linear so a standalone component performs differently when integrated in a complete model. The wind tunnel box is not as large as it should be (for computational resources). In fact, the wind tunnel inlet should be at least at 15 times the characteristic length of the object (i.e. the chord of the wing) while the outlet at least 25 times the chord far from the model.