International Journal of Engineering Research and Applications (IJERA) ISSN: 2248-9622 National Conference on Advances in Engineering and Technology (AET- 29th March 2014) Maharishi Markandeshwar University 28 | Page Numerical Simulation of Drag Reduction in Formula One Cars A.Muthuvel *, N. Prakash **, J. Godwin John*** *(Department of Automobile Engineering, Hindustan University, Chennai-603103 Email: muthuvelcfd@gmail.com) ** (Department of Automobile Engineering, Hindustan University, Chennai-603103 Email: nprakrao1@gmail.com) ** (Department of Automobile Engineering, Hindustan University, Chennai-603103 Email: godwinjohn18@gmail.com) ABSTRACT Today, it is very usual to see numerous cars, from commercial cars to sports cars fitted with different types of spoilers on them. The exterior fashioning and aerodynamically well-organized design for reduction of engine load which reflects in the reduction of fuel consumption and producing the down force for the stability are the two essential factors for an effective operation in the modest world. The adding of rear spoiler to an aerodynamically optimized car body will result in a change of lift and drag forces the car experiences and thus influence the cars overall performance, fuel consumption, safety, and stability. This paper presents a discussion on the results obtained from numerical simulation of airflow over a F1 car for various speeds like 80m/sec, 100m/sec and 120m/sec with and without a rear spoiler for 0 0 and 5 0 angle of attack of the spoiler. The influence of rear spoiler on the generated lift, drag, and pressure distributions are investigated and reported. Keywords – Aerodynamics, Drag, Fuel consumption, Lift, Spoilers. I. INTRODUCTION Flow over body has been a subject of great number of investigation mainly because of wider engineering applications. Some examples are flow over car, buildings, flight-deck of a ship, underwater appended vessels like submarine, torpedo, automated underwater vehicle (AUV), remotely operated vehicle (ROV) etc. In [1] author described the identification of aerodynamic noise source around a coupe passenger car and rear spoiler is added to the vehicle and acoustic effects are investigated. It is found that installing a rear spoiler can change the dominant noise source (location) from front bumper to the rear spoiler. Subsequent to noise source identification, the effect of different angles for rear spoiler is studied in order to recognize the case that gives the minimum acoustic power level of the dominant source (rear spoiler). By increasing the vehicle cruise, the aerodynamic noise rises significantly (e.g. the maximum acoustic power level increases around 3%). Size of the wake formed behind the rear spoiler and the turbulent intensity distribution on it, confirms that there exists a case that generates lower air-born noise. A pressure-based implicit procedure to solve Navier-Stokes equations on a unstructured polyhedral mesh with collocated finite volume formulation is used [2] to simulate flow around the smart and conventional flaps of a spoiler section under the ground effect. The agreement between presented predation and experimental data is for smart flap is smoother than conventional flap. In [3], authors carried out the work for numerical simulation of airflow over a passenger car without a rear spoiler and compares these with results obtained for a passenger car fitted with a rear spoiler and he suggested a rear spoiler on the generated lift, drag, and pressure distributions are investigated and reported. Two different types of simulations are performed [4] for the flow around a simplified high speed passenger car with a rear-spoiler and the other for the flow without a rear-spoiler. The standard k-ε model is selected to numerically simulate the external flow field of the simplified Camry model with or without a rear- spoiler. Through an analysis of the simulation results, a new rear spoiler is designed and it shows a mild reduction of the vehicle aerodynamics drag. This leads to less vehicle fuel consumption on the road. In [5], authors presented a comprehensive study for realistically predicting airflows around cars. The focus is on high fidelity road vehicle simulations, but with as short as possible turnaround time as prerequisite for aerodynamic optimization and innovation at lower development cost. The airflow is modeled using different commercial CFD packages, i.e. Ansys Fluent, CFX, Open FOAM and Power FLOW. Furthermore, recommendations for geometry preparation, grid and case set-up are given. Results for a road vehicle indicate that the best solver from an accuracy point of view is Star-CCM+. In [6] authors described about the drag reduction by checking car models with the installation of external devices and without the RESEARCH ARTICLE OPEN ACCESS