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Comparison of Computational and Experimental Aerodynamics Results for a WMU Solar Car Model
Technical Paper
2005-01-1910
ISSN: 0148-7191, e-ISSN: 2688-3627
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English
Abstract
Three-dimensional numerical simulations using FLUENT [1] were performed to model the airflow over the Sunseeker, an award-winning solar car that was designed and built at Western Michigan University. Converged numerical solutions on three different grids are reported and compared with the available experimental data, which include the lift and the drag coefficients. Also reported are the results obtained by using the second-order upwinding discretization on one of the grids. The comparison shows that the computed lift coefficients agree well with the experimental data for all the three grids and the different orders of numerical methods, indicating that the pressure field is well captured. The agreement with the data for drag coefficient varies, which appears to suggest a higher degree of dependency on the grid distributions than that for the lift coefficient. These results are discussed in terms of their implications for the simulations of similar low-drag vehicles.
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Authors
Citation
Yang, Y. and Liou, W., "Comparison of Computational and Experimental Aerodynamics Results for a WMU Solar Car Model," SAE Technical Paper 2005-01-1910, 2005, https://doi.org/10.4271/2005-01-1910.Also In
References
- FLUNET 5 User's Guide FLUENT Incorporated July 1998
- Pederson E. “Aerodynamic Design and Testing of the 1999 WMU Solar Car,” 2003
- Hochu, W. Sovran, G. “Aerodynamics of road vehicles,” Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics 25 1993 485
- Ozawa H. Nishikawa S. Higashida D. “Development of aerodynamics for a solar race car” JSAE Review 19 1998 343 349
- Tomiyama M. Maeda K. Nakamura F. “The development of a method to obtain the optimum lift coefficient using the vehicle dynamics analysis” JSAE Review 23 2002 69 74