Optimizing High-Lift Airfoils for Formula Student
Vehicles 2024-01-5059
This document presents a study on the design and simulation of a high-lift
airfoil intended for usage in multielement setups such as the wings present on
open-wheel race cars. With the advancement of open-wheel race car aerodynamics,
the design of existing high-lift airfoils has been altered to create a more
useful and practical general profile. Adjoint optimization tools in CFD (ANSYS
Fluent) were employed to increase the airfoil’s performance beyond existing
high-lift profiles (Selig S1223). Improvements of up to 20% with a
CL of 2.4 were recorded. To further evaluate performance, the airfoil was
made the basis of a full three-dimensional aerodynamics package design for an
open-wheel Formula Student car. CFD simulations were carried out on the same and
revealed performance characteristics of the airfoil in a more practical
application. These CFD simulations were calibrated with experimental values from
coast-down testing data with an accuracy of 8%.