Aerodynamic Approach on Enhancing the Downforce in a Self-Powered Electric Vehicle

This study proposes a self-powered and aerodynamically robust design of an EV. The vehicle design is proposed using the principles of bio mimicry following the standard procedures of transportation design. Speedform (a primitive form of the vehicle design generally considered as the visual vocabulary for transportation design) was developed computationally using AutoCAD. To enhance the Aerodynamic robustness of the vehicle, unique Aerodynamic Spoilers were proposed. VAWT (Vertical Axis Wind Turbine) incorporated with the Aerodynamic spoilers helps in generating the required power for the vehicle. The final external design of the vehicle was modelled on AutoDesk MAYA. The enhanced down force and reduced air drag were analyzed using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). The realizable k-e turbulence model was used for the CFD analysis on ANSYS Fluent. Drag coefficient, lift coefficient and velocity contours were considered for optimizing and validating the geometry.