CFD in car design

simulacion CFD

CFD in Car Design: Engineering Against an Enemy Nobody Can See With the collaboration of Yousef Hassanpour, aerospace and chemical engineer (Sharif University of Technology). The CFD study, simulations and images accompanying this article are his own work. Here is something that ought to unsettle anyone who trusts modern engineering: the equations governing how air … Read more

CAR WINGS

plymouth superbird wing

The Mate’s Rear Wing: What Works and What’s Just Expensive Sticker (AeroNEC · 5) You know the car. Hatchback, lowered, and a rear wing the size of a picnic table bolted to the bootlid, tall enough to serve tea on. Top Gear built a whole comedy strand out of cars like it. And the question … Read more

THE WAKE

aerodynamics wake

What the Car Leaves Behind: The Wake Matters More Than the Nose (AeroNEC · 4) A few years back the MythBusters tucked a car ten feet behind a lorry on a track and watched the fuel economy climb by nearly 40%. Terrifying to do, illegal to copy, but the number was real — and it … Read more

GROUND EFFECT

Colin Champman y sus Lotus

Ground Effect: The Dirty Trick F1 Had to Ban (AeroNEC · 3) In a wind tunnel in the mid-1970s, a team from Lotus watched something that shouldn’t happen. The tunnel’s moving floor — the belt meant to simulate a road rushing past — peeled up off its rollers and stuck itself to the underside of … Read more

DOWNFORCE

fan car down force

How to Glue a Car to the Ceiling: Downforce Explained (AeroNEC · 2) Remember the bit in Men in Black where Agent K flips the Crown Vic onto the roof of the Queens-Midtown tunnel and just keeps driving, upside down, lights flashing? Sci-fi nonsense, obviously. Except the physics underneath the gag is real, and a … Read more

DRAG

drag

The Wall You Can’t See: Why Your Car Won’t Go Any Faster (AeroNEC · 1) There’s a moment in the old Top Gear Veyron film where James May, flat out at Ehra-Lessien, tries to explain what it actually takes to push a car past 400 km/h. The numbers stop making sense. The engine is drinking … Read more