Automotive Aerodynamics

Body Rail

Block

Cartridge hole

Axel Hole

Sketch for side cut

Side Cut

Top Cut sketch

Top Sketch

Sketch for the cockpit

Lofting the cockpit with guidelines

After loft

Sketch for front wheel thing

Extruding the front wheel thing

Finished wheel thing

Rear wheel guard extrusion

Rear wheel guard finished

Rear wheel guard cut

Copying the Rear wheel guard cut

Fillet

Completed fillet

Wheel guard fillets

Rear wheel filet

Cockpit front splint line sketch

Cockpit front splint line

Completed splint

Cockpit side splint line sketch

Cockpit splint line

Completed splint

Completed Orange sides

Orange sides and gray sides

Gray sides

Orange glass?

Front Wheel

Front tire

Front rim being revolved

Axle cut

Circular pattern cut

Revolve of extrusion and dome

Final rim

Wheel assembly

Washer

Rear Wheel

Rear rim revolve

Axle cut

Revolve cut

Fillet

Completed rim

Rear tire revolve

Text

Completed tire

Assembly of rear wheel

Cartridge

Cartridge revolve

Cartridge

Rail Car Assembly

Axles mated

Wheels and washers mated

Cartridge assembly

Drawing

Decals: Pink Floyd, The Dark Side Of The Moon Album cover

Flow Simulation

Enable Flow Simulation

Create Project

Loads and motion

Velocity

Begging and end conditions

Solver data

Surface Plot with preasure areas

Surface Plot, selecting faces for simulation

Simulation arrows

Flow sim animation arrows compared back tires (fat or thin))

Arrows Flow Sim Animation

Flow sim Data

Drag data change

Flow sim animation spheres compared back tires (fat or thin)

Flow sim animation spheres

Percentage change

Thumbnail Sketches and Research

Curved body ideas draft #1

Curved body ideas draft #2

Aerodynamics ideas.

Wind tunnels in the front of the car that lead to the back, giving it a tear drop shape and directing air flow.
curved body

The Design

Failed car Designs

First Car Design

The car was never put into an assemble and never put through a flow sim due to it's flawed design. This only acted as a looks base to improve upon.

2nd Car Design

Surface plots

Note: this car was not run through the flow sim correctly (without wheels and and other components) so the data is inaccurate. This model is only shown here to show one of the failed aesthetic designs.

Flow Sim

3rd Car Design

This was the first car design to go threw the flow sim in the right way. The changes made were color and the front was more angled, as well as adding guide holes.

flow trajectories

Surface plots. Ton of drag

Data: Terrible drag and lift

Flow sim

4th Car Design

Failed: pointed front=too much surface area

5th Car Design

Failed because of the high amount of drag and lift due to the increased surface area.

6th Car Design

The front was pointed and there were are channels built into the front. That unexpectedly didn't work, and caused more harm than good. But, hey, it looked super cool.

Surface plots and lift & drag

7th Car Design

7th design also failed because of the high amount of drag and lift. The change was to make the front more angular and curved, but all that did was make the front have more surface area, causing drag.

8th Car Design

8th Design. Lower to the ground and rounder front. Failed Again

Final Car

Surface plots

Airflow

Drawing

Goals

Data summary

Lift

Drag

Flow sim

Construction

extrude the base

Extruded cut

Extrusion

Extruded cut

Extrusion

Extruded cut for wheel well

Mirror

Extrusion

Extrusion for rear wheel well

Extruded cut for wind channels

Mirror

Extruded cut for axles

Extrusion for guide hole

Extruded cut

Extruded cut to round off the block

Extruded cut for tail lights

Extruded cut for cartridge hole

Extruded cut to round the edges off

Extruded cut for guide holes

Comparing Data (3rd car design to final car design)

I am comparing the 3rd car because this was the first car that had accurate readings. This car is being compared to the final product o see if the final car improved at all. The final car did improve. The lift was decreased from positive 29.3596 p all the way down to -40.9146 p. The drag number also changed from -10.195 p to -81.8592 p.

3rd car design

Goals

Surface plots

Flow sim

Final car design

Goals

Flow sim

So, over all there was a 23.64% change in the drag.

The airflow on the final car is much better than the original car. This could be because of the reduced surface area in the front of the car and the more angled slope of the car's body.

Slicer

Test print of the guide holes and cartridge hole.

Wheel well and Axle hole test print

Slicer model: printing the full car (on the right) while sharing the build plate with Maria Morgan (on the left)

Race Day

Finished Print

Racing the Car Day 1 2/07/25

The first race went...udggahhhhh. I made a mistake in SolidWorks by not adding a channel for the guide line/fishing line so there was a ton of friction on the bottom of the car.

Results: DNF (did not finish)

Standings: Compared to Maria's car in the race, I did very poorly. She went all the way down the track and then some and I went about a foot and a half.

Fully set up cars before launch

Maria's ultimate defeat over my car.MOV

Angle 1

Racing the Car Day 2 2/10/25

IMG_0061.MOV

angle 1 (from my point of veiw)

IMG_0077.MOV

Angle 2

The Setup.

My stupid car only went less than half way. Still it is an improvement.

POSTPROSSESSING: I, with some help from my teacher, manually cut out a grove on the bottom, which helped a little. Results: DNF

Standings: Compared to my opponent I did a little better. I went down about 20-30 feet and he went all the way down

Racing the Car Day 3 2/11/25

IMG_0104.MOV

Race 3

My stupid crap car failed again! Even with the improvements, which I was pretty sure would work, it only went a certain distance. It rubbed up against the axles because the channel on the bottom was too deep.

Standings: Compared to all 3 races, I did the best in this one, even though I didn't make while my opponent went all the way at an impressive speed.

There is not a video of the race due to one or both of my teachers not uploading the video to the folder.

20250211_100543.mp4

My car, sadly being left in the dust

Race data. (Bright side: I didn't have to do any complicated math to find the speed or anything.)

POSTPROSSESSING: Red parts are what was changed. I, with some help added a new guide hole in the back (the second red circle) and took out the last one (the third red circle) . We also hacked the front off to make the guide hole shorter. Then I sanded and filed the heck out of it. After the race I added a new guide hole, but didn't have enough time to finish it (the first red circle).

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