Monash University Sunway

Campus
MEC3458 Experimental Project
EFFECTS OF AERODYNAMIC FORCES ON MINI 4WD
COWL IN WIND TUNNEL AND THE USE OF RAPID
PROTOTYPING IN OPTIMISING THE AERODYNAMIC
DESIGN
PROJECT REPORT
................13 .......10 Part B Optimization of the car
surface...........................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................................
......8 Designing a mount for model.........................................12
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................
......9 Determining humid air density and wind velocity................7 Experimental Setup
Apparatus and
Materials........................................................................................................................
......................12 References..........................................12 Future Works...........4
Problem Statement........................................11 Designing The New
Cowl...............................................................................................................................
..............4 Literature Review....................................................................CONTENTS
Acknowledgement............................................................................................2
Introduction...........................................................5
Methodology................................................................................11 Results and
Discussion..............................................................................8 Calibration of the
sensors.................................................................7 Part A Determining the
Aerodynamic forces of control model............................................11 Analyzing The
Data Obtained............................................................2 Abstract..............3
Background...............................9 Flow
Visualization....................................................................
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ABSTRACT .
which is outstanding even by todays standards. Economics. the desire for low drag
was recognized first followed by the need for higher negative lift.CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION The field of aerodynamics has been around since the seventeenth
century but its application has been utilized for centuries throughout recorded history.
nobody thought about aerodynamics. from the use of sailboats and windmills by
ancient societies to the flying machines designed by Leonardo Da Vinci during the
Renaissance.28.[1] Although the foundations of aerodynamics were formulated over
the past 200 years.[3] Fast forward to almost a century later and we can see how the
principles of aerodynamics has become a multifaceted field that governs a lot of the
design choices we see on the road today. The concept of applying aerodynamics to

road vehicles came up much later after flight technology had made considerable
progress. One of the earliest car design to have a streamlined designed was the
1899 Camille Jenatzy that went on to break the 100 kilometer/hour (km/h) barrier.
[2] Naturally. It is estimated that around 80km/h the aerodynamic drag begins to
have significant effect on a vehicle. not all principles were immediately utilized for car
design. and by 110km/h 65 percent of the power generated by the car is used to .
The car itself was electrically powered and had a design that was oddly shaped as a
FIGURE 1: CAMILLE JENATZY AT THE long cigar in an effort to reduce HELM OF
HIS LA JAMAIS CONTENTE aerodynamic drag. When the carriage horse was
replaced by a thermal engine more than 100 years ago. The rapidly developing
automotive industry followed and one of the most significant designs of that era is
the 1924 Tropfenwagen (droplet shape in German). This automobiles shape was
dominated by the airfoil shape (particularly from the top view) and recent tests in the
Volkswagen wind tunnel showed a drag coefficient of CD = 0. safety and even
environmental concerns has driven the need for optimizing the aerodynamic design
of vehicles. The purpose of the body of a car was to shelter the driver and
passengers from outside elements such as wind and rain.
however.[4] The motion of air around a moving vehicle affects all of its components
in one form or another.overcome aerodynamic drag. Engine intake and cooling flow.
internal ventilation. tire cooling. . The present discussion. focuses on the effects of
external aerodynamics only. and overall external flow all fall under the umbrella of
vehicle aerodynamics.
the printing time is shorter and the result is testing is actual working conditions.
There is also no lack in the materials that it is able to use in printing. The field of
rapid-prototyping. The list of material is ever-expanding as the field is becoming ever
more popular and more research are being conducted. Long simulation time coupled
with the requirement of expensive computer hardware to run these simulations
makes the use of low cost FDM 3D printing machine a much more appealing
alternative as the cost is cheaper. is becoming more accessible to the general public
as it has becomes less complex and more affordable to build. The use of rapidprototyping is also a main aspect of this experiment to show that the use of this
technology is cheaper. faster and more reliable than using computer aided
simulations such as FLUENT. The measurement of aerodynamic forces of car model
is taken using wind tunnel testing. . However. Polylactic acid (PLA).BACKGROUND
Improvements on vehicle drag is an important aspect in car design because of its
potential to improve fuel economy. Rapid prototyping using Fused Deposited
Modelling (FDM) is used to build modified parts/body and re-tested to measure the
optimized models aerodynamic. especially Fused Deposited Modelling (FDM).[5]
The use of CFD to determine the aerodynamics forces acting on a 3D model of the
mini 4WD cowl requires complex understanding of the accurate perimeters that it will
be subjected to in real life condition. rubber. the focus is on the aerodynamic forces
acting on a scale model of a mini 4 wheel drive (4WD) race car in order to improve
its performance on the tracks and also to better understand aerodynamic principles
in car design. The data is processed and body parts that contribute to drag and lift
are identified. porcelain and metal clay are but a few of the material that is able to be
used in rapid-prototyping. for this experiment. The specific objectives of this work are
to: To apply proper flow visualization technique suitable toward identifying

separation of flow on the models body parts. Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS).
PROBLEM STATEMENT The purpose of this project is to measure and optimize the
live scale model of mini 4 Wheel Drive (4WD) car toys aerodynamic forces.
To compare the successful percentage of reducing drag and lift forces of model.
To measure the aerodynamic forces of the model using wind tunnel testing rig. . To
analyse the data and identify the parts contributing to the drag and lift forces of the
model To build an improved model by rapid prototyping using FDM the new
parts/body and assemble it together.
basic airfoil and leading edge-cut are the main characteristic geometric parameter for
this study. Comparison of the main results with the wind tunnel experiment is
conducted with 1/18 replica of a Nascar. it is found that the addition of the spoiler in
the CFD model caused a decrease in the lift coefficient from 0. A large number of
numerical parafoil models with different geometric parameters are created by using
CFD technique to study the relationship between the parameters and parafoil
aerodynamic performance. For the wind tunnel testing. The experiment was
conducted by creating a 2-D vehicle geometry of a race car and it is solved using
computational fluid dynamics (CFD) solver FLUENT version 6.[7] K. SONG et al.8
percent error band for the comparison of the computational results with the spoiler
and the experimental data.26 to 0. Besides that this study found that the model
which has the lowest drag tends to have the largest lift-drag ratio which shows that
drag plays a leading role in parafoil gliding performance. In the experiment
conducted. conducted a study on the aerodynamic effects of rear spoiler geometry
on a sports car and the results from the CFD analysis are compared with the wind
tunnel experimentation.3. The planform geometry. The drag coefficient is found to be
0.31 by using CFD analysis and it increases to 0. Uncertainty analysis is carried out
to ensure the reliability of the obtained results. Artifial Neural Network (ANN) is used
for this study to optimize the outer shape of a sedan aerodynamically which focused
on the rear body shapes of the . the uncertainty related to the drag coefficient is
calculated to be 6.[6] Yihua Cao and Xu Zhu carried out a research on the effects of
characteristic geometric parameters on parafoil aerodynamic performance with the
aid of computational fluid dynamic (CFD) technique. meanwhile.CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW Halil Sadettin Hamut et al. A good agreement is obtained
within 5. Analysis of the aerodynamic effects is carried out with and without the rear
spoiler under different vehicle speeds.S. carried out a research on aerodynamic
design optimization of rear body shapes of a sedan for drag reduction.36 when the
spoiler is added to the geometry. its effect on flowfield is confined to the nearby
region of leading edge.05. the model with smaller leading-edge radius and thinner
thickness of parafoil section achieves larger lift-drag ratio and the leading-edge cut
has little effect on lift but increase drag dramatically.1 percent. Finding showed that
an increase in arc-anhedral angle decreases the lift of a parafoil but has little effect
on lift-drag ratio. arc-anhedral angle.
2011). It is found that compared to the original design. As stated by (Yang. this
automatic design and analysis process was applied to the PACE 2008 global vehicle
collaboration project and there were 4725 numerical cases due to the variations of
five parameters were calculated using the computer program.64 percent compared
to the proposed baseline vehicle. Gu and Li. To obtain the variables for the

optimization.[8] . 6 local parts from the end of the sedan were chosen as the design
variable for optimization. the aerodynamic performance is improved by 5. Yang
Zhigang et al. the process yielded a design with a 6 percent increase in downward
force and 5 percent decrease in drag. The research conducted states that the
process of design and numerical calculation for rear wing is traditionally carried out
by manual interference. The studies found that as the shapes are aerodynamically
optimized. conducted a study on aerodynamic design optimization of race car rear
wing.sedan. computer program of wing profiles and two scripts were created such
that the process of design analysis of a rear wing ranging from geometry generating
and meshing to the numerical calculation can be fully automatically handled. and the
numerical results normally will be about the relationship of aerodynamic forces and a
single design parameter of a rear wing. CFD simulation was used to analyse the
unsteady flow field around the sedan which moves at high speed and the fluctuations
of the drag coefficient (CD) and pressure around the car was calculated. After
consideration of the baseline result of CFD. In this study.
25 m x 0.CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY EXPERIMENTAL SETUP APPARATUS
AND MATERIALS FIGURE 2: WIND TUNNEL SCHEMATIC WITH DIMENSIONS
The area for the test section part at the wind tunnel is 0.25 m. Apparatus:
Manometer Barometer Force Transducer (KYOWA LSM-B-10NSA1 ) Weights Pitot
tubes Tamiya Mini 4WD 3D printer Materials: Thread Cotton Polylactic acid
(PLA) filament Double sided tape Super Glue Cyanocrylate PART A
DETERMINING THE AERODYNAMIC FORCES OF CONTROL MODEL .
RIGHT .3D PRINTED MOUNT FOR MODEL. PLA material also is used because it is
easier to use PLA material for the 3D printing process. It is easier to set up the
sensor when the car is held in this position.26 mm A MOUNT FOR MODEL
[SOLIDWORKS PICTURE OF MOUNT] The model for the mount of the car is
designed by using the solid work software. the mount was print out by using the 3D
printing device as shown in Figure 1 above. Then. Besides that. this mount was
attached under the car model so that the model will held upside down in the wind
tunnel as shown in Figure 2 above. Polylactic acid (PLA) material is used as a
filament in the 3D printing device to create this mount.The dimension for the model is
as below TABLE 1: SPECIFICATION OF THE SETUP Specification Chassis and
body Maximum car width Overall car height Overall car length Minimum car weight
(including batteries and motor) Front and rear tyres diameter Front and rear tyres
width DESIGNING Description Made from ABS plastic Under 105 mm Under 70 mm
Under 165 mm At least 90 g 22 .35 mm 8 .MOUNTED MODEL INSIDE THE WIND
TUNNEL . FIGURE 3: LEFT . Then. This is because the material is harder than other
material such as Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS).
TABLE OF HUMID AIR TEMPERATURE.BAROMETER.CALIBRATION OF THE
SENSORS The KYOWA LSM-B-10NSA1 device was set up as shown in Figure 3
above and connected to the computer. DETERMINING HUMID AIR DENSITY AND
WIND VELOCITY FIGURE 5: FROM LEFT . WET Dry bulb and wet bulb
temperature were taken from the thermometer as AND DRY BULB THERMOMETER
shown in Figure 6 above in lab. All the values obtained were key in to the air density
calculator. The velocity of air used for the wind tunnel is 20 m/s. Then. software for
calibration was run and observed to obtain the strain unit in x-direction (channel 1).

From the computer. . Then the results obtained were WEIGHTS plotted by using
Microsoft Excel. Then. yFIGURE 4: KYOWA FORCE direction (channel 2) and zdirection SENSOR AND BRONZE (channel 3). Then. Value of 50g increments
weights was put onto that device to calibrate the sensor. the pitot tube was
connected to the manometer reading as shown in Figure 7 and Figure 8 above to
find the change in height. barometric pressure reading was taken from barometer as
shown in Figure 4 above in lab. the values for change in height and air density were
used in Bernoullis Principle equation to obtain air velocity. The graph of strain unit in
z-direction against mass (g) is plotted to find the relationship equation between the
strain unit and mass (g). The difference between these two temperatures were
defined and referred to the humidity air table as shown in Figure 5 above to obtain
percentage of humidity. During the wind tunnel testing. this graph and the equation
obtained will be used as the reference to obtain drag force and lift force based on the
strain unit for drag and lift.
cotton wool was attached by glue to the surface of the car model to make the color
different from the surface of the car so that the flow patterns clearer to observe as
shown in the Figure 7 and Figure 8 above. Some specials methods are needed to
make the flow patterns visible because most fluids are transparent and their flow
patterns are invisible to us. The key features that can be investigated using the flow
visualization are stagnation point location. This technique is very critical to study in
order to understand the flow patterns on the surface. Flow separation visualization
was recorded and type of flow separation areas occurs was defined due to geometry
of the car. FIGURE 7: TOP VIEW Then. Then. Then. we choose the simplest and
frequent method for surface flow visualization which is to attach tufts to the surface
of interest. location of boundary layer transition.FLOW VISUALIZATION For the flow
visualization techniques where the process of making the physics of fluid flows are
visible. MODEL WITH TUFF extent of separation zones and etc. separation FIGURE
6: SIDE VIEW OF point. In this experiment. the geometry of the car was modified in
OF MODEL WITH TUFF order to optimize the drag and lift force. The surface of the
car model was painted with black color. . the flow separation in the rear portion was
observed from the flow pattern of the cotton wool during the wind tunnel testing
through the experiment.
the drag coefficient and lift coefficient is found by using the above formula CD= C L=
Drag Force (1) 1 2 V A 2 Lift Force (2) 1 2 V A 2 DESIGNING THE NEW
COWL . Channel 3 and Channel 4. the value for drag force and lift force can be
obtained. Next. However. The average reading for channel 2 and channel 3 was
used to plot the graph of strain unit (drag) against time (s) and strain unit (lift) against
time (s). Based on these two graphs. the value for drag coefficient and lift coefficient
were found. by using the relationship of strain unit and mass (g) that was found
during the calibration of the sensor. Channel 2.PART B OPTIMIZATION OF THE
CAR SURFACE ANALYZING THE DATA OBTAINED In data analysis. The wind
tunnel test was run two times to get more accurate result. Then. There are 4 strain
unit readings that will be shown in Microsoft Excel which are Channel 1. the strain
unit (drag) and strain unit (lift) can be obtained. for this project only reading from
channel 2 and channel 3 will be taken into consideration as channel 2 represents the
drag reading (Y-axis) and channel 3 represent the lift reading (Z-axis).

CHAPTER 4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION CONCLUSION FUTURE WORKS .

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