Abstract
The aim of this study is to study the effect of deploying an under-tray to a Formula Society of Automotive Engineers (FSAE) racecar for the Washington University FSAE racing team (WashU Racing) through Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). The under-tray geometry was developed to cover the bottom of an FSAE racecar by members of the WashU Racing team (a college FSAE team). The under-tray was added to the existing geometry of the Formula racecar; a mesh around it was then generated using the mesh generator in ANSYS and CFD simulations were performed using ANSYS Fluent to determine lift and drag values for the car in the presence of under-tray. Processing of numerical data was done using ANSYS EnSight. The center of pressure of the car was found analytically. All physical quantities obtained with inclusion of under-tray were compared to those obtained for the model of the car without the under-tray. It was found that under-tray slightly increases the lift coefficient and significantly decreases the drag coefficient. The study shows that the inclusion of an under-tray would be a worthwhile addition to the FSAE car.
Document Type
Final Report
Class Name
Mechanical Engineering and Material Sciences Independent Study
Date of Submission
5-15-2022
Recommended Citation
Ocken, Aaron and Agarwal, Ramesh K., "Computational Fluid Dynamics Study on the Effect of Using an Under-Tray Addition to Motorsport" (2022). Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science Independent Study. 187.
https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/mems500/187