Automotive Aerodynamics

Automotive aerodynamics is the study of the aerodynamics of road vehicles. Its main goals are reducing drag and wind noise, minimizing noise emission, and preventing undesired lift forces and other causes of aerodynamic instability at high speeds. Air is also considered a fluid in this case. For some classes of racing vehicles, it may also be important to produce downforce to improve traction and thus cornering abilities.

Rail Car

The basic parts.

Parts design.

Construction of the car.

Drawing of car.

Fat Tire-Thin Tire Flow Simulation Comparison

Thin tire flow sim without projectiles.

Fat tire flow sim with projectiles.

Thin tire flow sim with arrow projectiles.

Fat tire flow sim with arrow projectiles.

Thin tire flow sim animation with sphere projectiles.

Fat tire flow sim animation with sphere projectiles.

Thin tire goal plot chart of lift and drag.

Fat tire goal plot chart of lift and drag.

Thin tire values from solver.

Fat tire values from solver.

Thumbnail Sketches and Research

CO2 Car Creation- Despicable Me Car

Construction of the car before revision. I was aiming to recreate Gru's car from the movie Despicable Me.

Construction of the revision. I added vents to the front of the car for the air that is adding drag to flow through the front of the car and out of the bottom. This decreases the drag on the car.

First flow simulation.

Second flow simulation with revision. Although the vents did not totally solve the problem related to drag at the front of the car, they improved it and allowed for air to flow more smoothly through those vents.

Running flow simulation of first design.

Running flow simulation of redesign.

Drawing of prototype.

In this video you can see the improved air flow coming out of the vents at the bottom of the car.

Additive Manufacturing of CO2 Car

Video of test print.

Image of finished test print. It includes the cartridge hole, an axle hole, and a guideline hole.

When printing the final version of the car, supports were placed inside the vents, which could not be removed resulting in having to reprint the car with less supports. These are images of the first total print of the car.

Assembling The CO2 Car - Adding Personalization - Post-Processing

Image of final printed and painted part.

Fully assembled car with axles and tires.

Race Day

First race time: 1.844

Second race time: 2.056

First race time after loss: 1.605

First Race

These are videos of the first race. The video on the left is a slow motion video of the race, and the videos on the right are different views of the race. My car lost this race, but won by default due to the other car not meeting requirements. This meant that my car moved on to the next round. My race time for this race was 1.844 seconds

Image of our cars at the starting line

Second Race

These are slowed down videos of my second race. In this race, my car got it's slowest time, 2.056 seconds and lost against the other car. Because of this loss, my car was out of the tournament. After getting a slower time from before, I realized that the wheels of my car were rubbing against the body of the car, slowing it down.

Image of our cars at the starting line

Third Race

These are slowed down videos of the third race, the first race after my loss. In this race, My car lost with a time of 1.605. This was the fastest time that it had, and was a result of me loosening the tires on their axles to create more space. I needed to do this because part of the tires was scraping on the sides of my car, slowing it down.

Picture of Hammerhead car starting to pass the Gru car.

Image of cars at the starting line.

Calculating Maximum Velocity

Images of calculations for maximum velocity.