Optimization of Modified Car Body Using Mesh Morphing Techniques in CFD 2016-01-0009

Today's strict fuel economy requirement produces the need for the cars to have really optimized shapes among other characteristics as optimized cooling packages, reduced weight, to name a few. With the advances in automotive technology, tight global oil resources, lightweight automotive design process becomes a problem deserving important consideration. It is not however always clear how to modify the shape of the exterior of a car in order to minimize its aerodynamic resistance. Air motion is complex and operates differently at different weather conditions. Air motion around a vehicle has been studied quite exhaustively, but due to immense complex nature of air flow, which differs with different velocity, the nature of air, direction of flow et cetera, there is no complete study of aerodynamic analysis for a car. Something always can be done to further optimize the air flow around a car body. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) solvers can be partnered with optimization software which guide model design changes and evaluate the corresponding results. Design changes can be executed by modifying a parameterized geometry or using mesh morphing techniques. In the present paper, ANSYS Fluent will be used in conjunction with the optimization software ANSYS DesignXplorer to study ways of reducing drag and lift for a car body. The body in question in this study is the Ahmed body[1] which has been used numerous times for CFD code validation. This geometry represents a road legal car which is used to study the effect of different forces like, aerodynamic drag force, lift force, and some other major forces which affect a car’s motion significantly. However, after thorough research and application, it has been concluded that a rear spoiler is always beneficial for fast cars, since the car tends to be much stable aerodynamically after the application of the spoiler. However, different angle of the spoiler reacts differently to different air flow conditions. We have modified the Ahmed body by making a few design changes and attaching a Clark-Y foil. Accurate prediction of its aerodynamic performance often requires very accurate and computationally expensive calculations. Optimization of the design will be achieved by using reduced resources, by analyzing how air at different velocity affect the body and what changes might be necessary for a further optimized performance. This paper will demonstrate that optimization can be performed with limited resources relying on information about drag deltas rather than absolute values. Keeping limiting resources in mind, a grid independence study wasn’t done.