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fantasy aero package league


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#1 mariner

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Posted 14 May 2012 - 08:20

Well I know "fantasy" and "league" could be misconstrued but this one is strictly for the nerds .

Well the ones that live in big team CFD workstation rooms anyway.

We have fantasy F1 and soccer so why stop there. As I understand it the F1 teams are now limited to X teraflops of crunching power per year to limit CFD over-kill so all those supercomputeres must have some idle time.

So in the fantasy league anybody can develop a CFD model of an F1 car to any past regulations to see who wins the downforce and lap time simulation race.

To make it fair the engine is fixed at todays 650 bhp type level for everybody, so the Lotus 79 concept could, say, pull more wing but a turbo car would have to give up wing due to less power.

You can simulate any set of F1 rules since, say 1968 as the starting point of not just wings but regulation of the aero package.

I know its sort of silly but it would also be interesting to see just how much downforce and lap time could be extracted from , say, full ground effects cars with all of today's modelling knowledge and lap sim. packages.

Maybe some rich person ( not me!) could put up a prize so the aero groups could play around in the CFD idle time to see what they could really do given a chance.

The one useful thing that might come out is exactly how much the curent rules actually reduce corner speeds and lap times.

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#2 Bloggsworth

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Posted 14 May 2012 - 22:33

Can you suggest a CFD program for my Sinclair ZX80?

#3 gruntguru

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Posted 15 May 2012 - 06:24

Can you suggest a CFD program for my Sinclair ZX80?

Build your own:
1. Remove cobwebs, junk and debris from Sinclair ZX80.
2. Attach an old cotton pillowcase to Sinclair ZX80.
3. Open junkroom window.
4. Carefully position assistant(s) with video camera and garden hose below window.
5. Set fire to pillowcase.
6. Throw Sinclair ZX80 out of window.
7. Analyse video, noting displacement per frame, smoke streamlines etc.
8. Post results and analysis here first.

#4 Paolo

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Posted 15 May 2012 - 10:05

:rotfl:

Build your own:
1. Remove cobwebs, junk and debris from Sinclair ZX80.
2. Attach an old cotton pillowcase to Sinclair ZX80.
3. Open junkroom window.
4. Carefully position assistant(s) with video camera and garden hose below window.
5. Set fire to pillowcase.
6. Throw Sinclair ZX80 out of window.
7. Analyse video, noting displacement per frame, smoke streamlines etc.
8. Post results and analysis here first.



#5 Paolo

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Posted 15 May 2012 - 14:22

Well I know "fantasy" and "league" could be misconstrued but this one is strictly for the nerds .

Well the ones that live in big team CFD workstation rooms anyway.

We have fantasy F1 and soccer so why stop there. As I understand it the F1 teams are now limited to X teraflops of crunching power per year to limit CFD over-kill so all those supercomputeres must have some idle time.

So in the fantasy league anybody can develop a CFD model of an F1 car to any past regulations to see who wins the downforce and lap time simulation race.

To make it fair the engine is fixed at todays 650 bhp type level for everybody, so the Lotus 79 concept could, say, pull more wing but a turbo car would have to give up wing due to less power.

You can simulate any set of F1 rules since, say 1968 as the starting point of not just wings but regulation of the aero package.

I know its sort of silly but it would also be interesting to see just how much downforce and lap time could be extracted from , say, full ground effects cars with all of today's modelling knowledge and lap sim. packages.

Maybe some rich person ( not me!) could put up a prize so the aero groups could play around in the CFD idle time to see what they could really do given a chance.

The one useful thing that might come out is exactly how much the curent rules actually reduce corner speeds and lap times.




I like your idea a lot. Of course the rules should mandate at least

a) the software package (is there any freeware? Doesn't need to be full pro, it's a game after all)
b) evaluation wind speed, Reynolds etc
c) maximum number of cells, mesh type, maximum mesh irregularity (need a parameter for that)
d) Aero rules, tyre size...
e) etc.

I am speaking just about a downforce contest, here: I strongly suggest to avoid making it a laptime simulation because
a) too many other parameters are needed (tyres, driver model...)
b) I am developing something of the laptime contest kind (have been for the last 3 years at least) and trust me, it's DIFFICULT. I'm currently programming a neural network from scratch to overcome certain issues, just to give an idea of what is involved. We are speaking 100 plus input parameters and, I swear, I tried to keep it simple.

Edited by Paolo, 15 May 2012 - 14:23.


#6 mariner

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Posted 15 May 2012 - 17:37

I guess if it was downforce AND drag that would allow some very rough impacts on lap time given the "standard" 650 bhp current F1 engine rule.

#7 bigleagueslider

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Posted 16 May 2012 - 00:41

mariner,

The basic concept sounds like lots of fun for hardcore engineering nerds, but there might be a few practical issue to consider.

The first one that comes to mind is the huge amount of effort that this would require, both from the participants and from those reviewing the results. In order to make such a huge investment of time and effort worthwhile there would need to be something more than "bragging rights" at stake. If someone is competent at using CAD and CFD to do aero design, they also would likely be able to earn a handsome salary doing this work. I can't imagine such a person spending a few hundred hours working on a contest entry just for fun.

Second, while there are some very nice open source CFD tools, they are not easy to use and they do require some pretty high-end processing power. Here's a link to a good open source CFD application: http://openfoam.com/

As a possible suggestion, in order to minimize the total amount of time/effort involved initially maybe you could start with a template surface model. The first round of competition would only involve designing a new front wing. Another round might only involve designing a new diffuser. And so on.

Good luck. The idea sounds like it might have some potential, especially if you can round up some sponsorship. The world needs more efforts like this to promote engineering. I can even imagine a "virtual" version of the annual university Formula SAE competition.

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#8 Paolo

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Posted 16 May 2012 - 10:01

I can even imagine a "virtual" version of the annual university Formula SAE competition.


It already exists.


#9 munks

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Posted 16 May 2012 - 14:10

Second, while there are some very nice open source CFD tools, they are not easy to use and they do require some pretty high-end processing power. Here's a link to a good open source CFD application: http://openfoam.com/


Just FYI, another one that I've been told is relatively easy to use (but apparently only gives drag at the moment): Falcon