AJNM_JFTA005: CFD in Vehicle Engineering Széchenyi University

Instructor: D. Feszty Audi Hungaria Dept. of Whole Vehicle Development

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Assignment A2:
Airfoil Aerodynamics
Version 1
18 September 2018

1. Introduction

The purpose of this assignment is to make students to practice running Computational Fluid
Dynamics simulation for a simple yet practical case in race car engineering.

The basic idea is to examine whether it is worth to employ wings on a Formula SAE racecar
(Fig. 1). These cars are designed, built and raced by university students every year around the
globe. The cars have an empty weight around 160 – 220 kg and are equipped with either a 50
HP internal combustion engine or an electric motor. Although their top speed is usually in
excess of 150 km/h, for safety reasons the tracks are assembled in a way so that their top
speed in a straight does not exceed about 80-90 km/h. The typical corner speeds are around
40-60 km/h.

Fig. 1. The Arrabona Racing Team’s ART02 race car from 2015. This is the race car designed and built by students
at the Audi Department of Vehicle Engineering at Szechenyi University in Győr, Hungary.

Your task is to calculate the lift (in our case: the downforce) of an airfoil at the typical corner
speeds, i.e. 50 km/h. The task is to simulate an airfoil in isolation and in classical aerodynamic
configuration, i.e. with lift pointing upwards and in pure freestream (far away from the ground or
any other objects).

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AJNM_JFTA005: CFD in Vehicle Engineering Széchenyi University
Instructor: D. Feszty Audi Hungaria Dept. of Whole Vehicle Development
_____________________________________________________________________________________
2. Objectives

Goals:
- Generate the curves of aerodynamic characteristics for the FX 63-137 airfoil
via CFD and compare them to experiment
- The aerodynamic curves consist of:
o lift curve (i.e. cl –  curve)
o drag polar (i.e. cl – cd curve)
o pitching moment curve (i.e. cm –  curve)
- for generating the above curves, use a 2 degrees increment for the Angle of
Attack, i.e. run eight (8) steady-state CFD simulations at 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12,
14 degrees and extract the above plots from these results.

Fig. 2. Test case for TASK 1. Note: dynamic viscosity of air at sea-level conditions is
−5
1.81×10 kg/(m·s).

Specific step-by-step tasks:

- understand the test case (see Fig. 2 below)

- determine Re and Mach numbers and decide about the nature of flow
(laminar/turbulent or compressible/incompressible)

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AJNM_JFTA005: CFD in Vehicle Engineering Széchenyi University
Instructor: D. Feszty Audi Hungaria Dept. of Whole Vehicle Development
_____________________________________________________________________________________
- enter the airfoil coordinates from App. A into an electronic format suitable to
be read in into ANSYS-Fluent for the geometry generation (see the airfoil
Tutorial link below on what format is suitable)
- Based on the Re number, select the appropriate experimental airfoil data,
and enter them (from the provided tables) into a suitable electronic format for
future evaluation.
- Perform CFD simulation by:
o generate computational domain
o setup the boundary conditions
o generate mesh
o setup initial conditions
o make notes for yourself about the numerical method (i.e. key features
of the CFD code used and the specific numerical parameters)
o perform verification (grid dependence tests, with at a medium AOA,
for example 4 degrees)
o run the CFD simulations at 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14 degrees AOA
 Note: beyond stall (about 10-12 deg) the flow might become
unsteady
 Solving an unsteady flow with a steady solver might exhibit
itself in a lack convergence
o post-process the results, i.e. extract:
 velocity magnitude contour plots at all eight AOA’s
 velocity vector plots at all eight AOA’s
 pressure contour plots at all eight AOA’s
 cP plots at all eight AOA’s (these are equivalent to the v/v∞
plots shown on p. 7 in App. A)
 total lift force (in N), drag force (in N) and pitching moment (in
Nm) at all eight AOA’s
 lift coefficient (cl), drag coefficient (cd) and pitching moment
coefficient (cm) at all eight AOA’s
o validate the CFD results (i.e. compare them to experimental results)
 plot the CFD results as dots over the experimental curves
 discuss how good or bad the comparison is to experiment
- submit a Technical Report describing all the above according to the format
shown in Sec. 3.

Note: Elements of this task will be fully explained in the Tutorial Sessions.
Theoretical background on airfoils as well as detailed instructions and help on
how to setup, run and analyze the CFD simulation of an airfoil at one specific
AOA is provided in the following online tutorial:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZ1ippYSTOI&feature=youtu.be

Students should be able to complete Assignment A2 with ease if they attend the
Tutorial Sessions.

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AJNM_JFTA005: CFD in Vehicle Engineering Széchenyi University
Instructor: D. Feszty Audi Hungaria Dept. of Whole Vehicle Development
_____________________________________________________________________________________

3. Deliverables:

The deliverable is a Technical Report written according to the international engineering

and scientific standards. The structure and format of Technical Reports in the Western
world is rather rigid and therefore easy to learn (once learned, it can be reused for the
rest of the students career). In general, a Technical Report should have sufficient
information so that the reader can repeat the work we have done. It is important to
describe the reasons of the choices we have made, i.e. not just WHAT have we
done, but also WHY? (For example, why did we choose the concrete boundary
conditions we applied, etc.)

A Technical Report on CFD has the following sections:

- Title, Author, Institution and Date

- Abstract (max. 10-15 lines long summary of key contents of paper)
- Nomenclature (list of symbols)
- Introduction
o Normally 4 paragraphs:
 Intro into the problem (why are boundary layers important?)
 Review of the State-of-the-art
 Why do we do this work?
 What are the objectives of this paper?
- Test Case:
o Flow conditions (also calculate Reynolds number and Mach number
so that you can decide whether the flow is laminar/turbulent or
compressible/incompressible: comment on these features), test
geometry, provide a figure
- Computational Domain
o How large is it? How many blocks? What layout and why? How far are
the boundaries from the object and why? Show sketch with key
dimensions.
- Boundary and Initial Conditions
o Describe the Boundary and Initial conditions chosen. Show them on
the above sketch or a new one.
- Mesh generation
o What type of mesh is used? (structured, unstructured?) How was the
mesh generated (manually or automatically)? Is the mesh 2D or 3D?
How many cells in each direction? What was the first spacing at the
wall. How many cells and nodes are in the mesh? Show the mesh in a
figure.
- Numerical Method
o Which code (software) is used? What type of equations does it solve?
What type of discretization does it use (Finite Element, Finite Volume,
Finite Difference, Spectral Method?). What is the order of spatial and
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AJNM_JFTA005: CFD in Vehicle Engineering Széchenyi University
Instructor: D. Feszty Audi Hungaria Dept. of Whole Vehicle Development
_____________________________________________________________________________________
time discretization (1st, 2nd or higher?). What numerical method does it
use to solve the equations (explicit or implicit)? What convergence
levels were set? Did you choose to run inviscid, laminar, turbulent or
transitional simulations? Did we run steady or unsteady simulations?
If turbulent, then what turbulent models are available and which one
did you choose and why? What was the freestream turbulent intensity
and why?
- Verification of results:
o The goal is to verify that the numerical simulations are independent of
the numerical parameter we have chosen, i.e. they are credible
o Perform a grid dependence and/or time step dependence test (the
latter one only if time step was a parameter chosen by us)
o What was the coarse, medium and fine mesh density?
o Show graph of a suitable parameter (for example, shear stress along
wall, or velocity profile – you decide) with the 3 mesh densities
o Make a conclusion that which mesh is suitable for further simulations.
- Validation of results:
o Means comparison with the correct results, i.e. analytical or
experimental results.
o Say that which mesh results (from above) are you going to compare
o Describe briefly that what do you compare to (theory or experiment or
both)
o Show graphs of a suitably chosen parameter to compare them
- Results and Discussions:
o Now that we are confident in the correctness and accuracy of the CFD
simulations, we can start to analyze the results.
o Show the results asked in the specific tasks of the Assignement text.
o Comment on the key physical features of them
- Conclusions:
o Note: this is not a summary! (the Abstract is there for a summary),
but…
o A list of key conclusions, with recommendations for future work
- Acknowledgements:
o Thank here to anyone you wish (usually to sponsoring agencies) or to
a person who is not listed among the authors but helped a lot in
completing this paper
- References:
o List here all literature sources (books, journal papers, conference
papers, weblinks) you took information from BUT..
o You must refer to these reference numbers in the text…
o You can only list references here, which you actually refer to in the
text.

Deadline for submission: Tuesday, 16 October 2018, 16:00

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AJNM_JFTA005: CFD in Vehicle Engineering Széchenyi University
Instructor: D. Feszty Audi Hungaria Dept. of Whole Vehicle Development
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Form of submission: electronically, as well as a printed report in black and white (this is
the preferred format in scientific literature). As such, it is advised
to save figures from CFD or Excel right away in the format, which
in black and white will be clear to the reader.

Language of submission: English

Location of submission: Department of Whole Vehicle Engineering (Járműfejlesztési

Tanszék), collection boxes inside the doors

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 AJNM_JFTA005: CFD in Vehicle Engineering Széchenyi University
Instructor: D. Feszty Audi Hungaria Dept. of Whole Vehicle Development
_____________________________________________________________________________________

APPENDIX A: AIRFOIL DATA for FX 63-137

(Source: Selig, M.S., McGranahan, B.D., “Wind Tunnel Aerodynamic tests for Six Airfoils for Use on Small Wind
Turbines, Report no. NREL/SR-500-34515, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, IL, U.S.A., 2003.)
pressure coefficient (cP) plots. They do
These are corresponding to the

computer simulation called “Eppler

not come from experiment but from a

code”. As such, they should not be

used for validation purposes.

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AJNM_JFTA005: CFD in Vehicle Engineering Széchenyi University
Instructor: D. Feszty Audi Hungaria Dept. of Whole Vehicle Development
_____________________________________________________________________________________

Airfoil coordinates

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AJNM_JFTA005: CFD in Vehicle Engineering Széchenyi University
Instructor: D. Feszty Audi Hungaria Dept. of Whole Vehicle Development
_____________________________________________________________________________________

Airfoil data for FX 63-137 airfoil:

Summary of lift and drag data plots for all Reynolds numbers

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AJNM_JFTA005: CFD in Vehicle Engineering Széchenyi University
Instructor: D. Feszty Audi Hungaria Dept. of Whole Vehicle Development
_____________________________________________________________________________________

Airfoil data for FX 63-137 airfoil:

Lift and moment data plots for Re = 100 000 and 150 000

solid symbols: increasing AOA

empty symbols: decreasing AOA

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AJNM_JFTA005: CFD in Vehicle Engineering Széchenyi University
Instructor: D. Feszty Audi Hungaria Dept. of Whole Vehicle Development
_____________________________________________________________________________________

Airfoil data for FX 63-137 airfoil:

Lift and moment data plots for Re = 200 000 and 350 000

solid symbols: increasing AOA

empty symbols: decreasing AOA

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AJNM_JFTA005: CFD in Vehicle Engineering Széchenyi University
Instructor: D. Feszty Audi Hungaria Dept. of Whole Vehicle Development
_____________________________________________________________________________________

Airfoil data for FX 63-137 airfoil:

Lift and moment data plots for Re = 500 000

solid symbols: increasing AOA

empty symbols: decreasing AOA

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AJNM_JFTA005: CFD in Vehicle Engineering Széchenyi University
Instructor: D. Feszty Audi Hungaria Dept. of Whole Vehicle Development
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Airfoil data for FX 63-137 airfoil:
Tabulated lift and drag data for all Reynolds numbers

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AJNM_JFTA005: CFD in Vehicle Engineering Széchenyi University
Instructor: D. Feszty Audi Hungaria Dept. of Whole Vehicle Development
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Airfoil data for FX 63-137 airfoil:
Tabulated lift and moment data for all Reynolds numbers

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AJNM_JFTA005: CFD in Vehicle Engineering Széchenyi University
Instructor: D. Feszty Audi Hungaria Dept. of Whole Vehicle Development
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Airfoil data for FX 63-137 airfoil:
Tabulated lift and moment data for all Reynolds numbers (contd.)

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