Flow Illustrator - a simple windtunnel simulator

[Chris D.]

No takers eh?

Originally Posted by Chris D.

I'm happy to see you don't need to black it all out, gives it a more realistic aspect..
I've never been able to get this to work for me...

If anyones bored I've always been curious about my old truck..



This was the only truck I've owned that I can say for certain that removing the tailgate made a difference..

back in my speedin days it would max out at 89mph
Now with the tailgate removed it would go to 94mph..
what would ya expect from a 65hp trucklet
both tests were on a dead calm day back to back within 25 minutes of each other..

[cfg83]

Chris D -

Originally Posted by Chris D.

No takers eh?

I can put some time in on this over the weekend. Can you give me the car's year/model specs?

CarloSW2

[Chris D.]

1984 Dodge Rampage..
2.2 sohc 8v carbureted/5 speed
Direct-><-Connection (Chrysler parts division) side skirts and chin spoiler..
Koni adjustable struts w ground control coilovers up front, rear axel
flipped (3" drop) with koni shocks ment for a volvo (modified to fit)

Thanks Carlos..

any chance you could send me the videos when you get em rollin?
thanks in advance PentastarTurbo@aol.com

[taco]

i cant get mine to play

[Sergei]

Dear tasdrouille,

RE: in reply to #127

Sorry for not replying earlier.

No, I do not work on road vehicles. I examined a couple of PhD theses related to Formula 1, but they have very specific aerodynamics, and I also worked quite a lot on separated flows, but again without road vehicle applications.

If I come across a freely-available paper of the type you are interested in (I had a look) I will let you know.

Opening a 'consultancy' blog is of little interest for me, I am afraid: I am busy. 'Aero without math' is another matter, this is a topic which I have been interested in for more than 30 years now, and eventually I would like to put my ideas in this area on paper: a blog could be a step towards this.

Best regards Sergei

[ebacherville]

for those that cant view the videos , just upload them to youtube to see them..

[cfg83]

Sergei -

Originally Posted by Sergei

Hello everyone,

Thirdman told me about this forum and this thread. Naturally, I was happy to see the interest in Flow Illustrator, and also I noticed a lot of recent activity on the server, which is now explained.

I would be gratefull for your comments, as this may improve Flow Illustrator. If, say, the functionality of it is fixed, what can be improved?

Another thing: I read all the posts, and, rather naturally, the level of the background knowledge of aerodynamics and CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) issues, well, varies. I would be happy to explain things, but there is just no way to explain aerodynamics in one sitting, and it would be nice not to need to repeat the same explanations again and again. May be I should concentrate them somewhere. Would there be much interest, do you think, to something like 'Aero without math' blog (run by a professor of the Department of Aeronautics of the Imperial College London, which, as you surely know, is one of the best universities in the world :-))?

Thank you for making yourself available to this forum. I think it would be neat if you did one in-depth analysis of a car silhouette that you yourself design and mod. Here is an example of what I mean :

1 - Make a 512*256(?) bitmap of silhouette of car that you think would work best with your Flow Illustrator. To make your life easy, you could pick one of the pictures we have already created. If you keep copies of the bitmaps we upload, then you already have a *plethora* to choose from!!!!

2 - Document inputs and put result on YouTube (or your website!!!).

3 - Add one meaningfull mod to the bitmap, calculate, and post on YouTube (or your website!!!).

4 - Comment on both videos.

This way, you wouldn't get bogged-down trying to tell us what we are doing right/wrong with our image inputs and output interpretation. The idea is, you could show how a "trained user" would take advantage of the Flow Illustrator to demonstrate the efficacy of an aerodynamic modification to a car.

Hmmmmm, maybe you could even write a paper on it. .

CarloSW2

[apgrok1]

I've noticed a few trends in the ones that I've downloaded. The smoother that one makes the front end; a) the faster the streamlines travel, and b) the harder it is to get the stream line to stick to the rear of the car. Both events also happen if you get the car closer to the ground. This makes sense to me, but what is tricky is trying to figure out what modifications to make that will give me the best of both worlds.

[Concrete]

Sergei,

I agree with cfg83, a diagnosis of one vehicle cross sections that was a good example of how a person could improve it's aerodynamics, by the author of Flow Illustrator would be wonderful.

That way you get a chance to teach us how to use your program properly, without us bogging you down explaining "again and again".

If you picked a sample car and gave one of us the proper recipe we could even run all the examples and set up the videos on Youtube etc. Then you would be free to concentrate on how you want to write it up and post it.
If you selected a car that someone has real world data on with heavy aero mods like basjoos, AndrewJ's or MPGmetro's we could tie the simulation directly to the real world.

The question is where to "concentrate" the data... that is for a moderator to figure out
but it sure would be a wonderful resource to have an article on Flow Illustrator

as for Aero without math
most things are more enjoyable without math, aero particularly so

[thebrad]

Finally found a profile photo of a 96-00 Civic equipped with the spoon rear spoiler.

YouTube - Wind Tunnel estimation

Source image:


Took artistic liberty and added rear wheel skirts.