Published Paper Details:

Aerodynamics makes for more than 70% of the Formula 1 variables that may be affected by engineers. In the design process for the automobile industry, computational fluid dynamics is becoming more and more important, particularly for the forecasting of aerodynamic properties. The modelling of the aerodynamic flow around a Formula 1 racing car's front end is the focus of the current study. There were four stages to the numerical simulation: modelling of the geometry, creation of the computational mesh, computing of the flow, and visualisation and analysis of the flow solutions. The flow computation was carried out on a high-performance parallel computer system, the Silicon Graphics Origin2000, due to the substantial resources required. Comparison of the numerical predictions with wind tunnel data shows that the correct dependencies of the aerodynamic forces on various tuning parameters are obtained. Thus, despite the complexity of both the car geometry and the flow behaviour, the present study has shown that numerical simulation can provide a wealth of information useful to the design process