Application of an Integrated CFD Methodology for the Aerodynamic and Thermal Management Design of a Hi-Performance Motorcycle

Though CFD methods have become very popular and widespread tools in the early as well as more advanced automotive design stages, they are still not so common in the motorcycle industry branch. The present work aims at the development of a comprehensive simulation environment, based on the open-source finite volume toolbox OpenFOAM^®, for the aerodynamic and thermal fluxes optimization of a full motorcycle-and-rider geometry. The paper is divided in two parts: in the first one, the OpenFOAM^® code is evaluated for a cold flow aerodynamic analysis, using a slightly simplified version of the Aprilia RSV4 motorbike geometry; in the second one, a mixed reduced scale-full scale methodology is proposed for the simultaneous assessment of aerodynamic forces and heat transfer performances of the engine cooling system. Results have been compared against other well established commercial CFD packages and, where available, with experimental measurements.