Quote:
Originally Posted by sgtlethargic
It says "... shaping still has to be carried out almost exclusively by experiment [versus numerical methods]"
in "Aerodynamics of Road Vehicles."
A solar car article said they used CFD software.
|
Professional level CFD is used by all major car manufacturers, solar car designers, etc, to develop shapes. However, from what I understand, there is a major difference between CFD of the sort available free and at low cost - and the professional level stuff.
Professor Joe Katz was scathing about low cost CFD. He said to me: "It's just kids with pretty pictures."
Rob Palin (ex Tesla) is currently using a professional version of a low cost CFD to do some modelling. It was taking his PC (he gave the spec - overclocked and high quality) three days to churn out 10 seconds of airflow modelling.
If you look around the web you'll find people modelling current cars with low cost CFD - and their calculated Cd values are often very different to the manufacturer's quoted Cd value for the car.
I am no expert in this area, but as far as I can tell, CFD isn't yet viable at amateur level for results that you'd trust. I'd love to see some comparison testing between low cost CFD and full-size testing of the car.