Quote:
Originally Posted by sendler
I'm acually surprised that I can't find an online simulator that would let you play with different airfoils widths and lengths and allow you to add truncation to the tail.
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I know, Right...2 things I've picked up over the last couple of years here:
1st, Flow simulation is about 50 times more complex than what you think it is, the math & such required to predict what a bunch of air molecules are going to do, and what effect this will have as an object moves through them, is astounding. The computing power required to run a proper test is enormous, see this video for what it takes to image swirls. They had 4,096 CPUs working together to make this.
What's this mean to you? Finding someone online willing to let you play with their 4,096 CPU's to simulate your various designs is not likely. Not even mentioning inputting the data to the simulation, in order to properly test what you are wanting to do, would require knowledge of the system way beyond what the layperson could understand without years of education on it.
2nd, Because it is so complicated, the slightest error in math will yield results that are not accurate in the real world. This is why any major automaker spends many 10's of millions of dollars on wind tunnels to test models for aerodynamic properties.
While flow simulation may get you close, there is no substitute for real air moving over a real object and measuring the forces to see how changes in design affect the overall drag, lift, downforce etc. on a vehicle.