SAE TECHNICAL

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980040

Aerodynamic Optimization of the Opel Calibra

ITC Racing Car Using Experiments and
Computational Fluid Dynamics
Frank Werner and Steffen Frik
Adam Opel AG

Josef Schulze

Reprinted From: Developments in Vehicle Aerodynamics

(SP-1318)

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980040

Aerodynamic Optimization of the Opel Calibra ITC Racing Car

Using Experiments and Computational Fluid Dynamics
Frank Werner and Steffen Frik
Adam Opel AG

Josef Schulze
Copyright 1998 Society of Automotive Engineers, Inc.

ABSTRACT

The other drag coefficients mentioned in Fig.1 describe

the range of other setups and the estimated values of
some competitor cars. It is obvious that these differences
have a decisive effect on possible accelerations and
speeds, and hence may decide the race.

The requirements for racing car aerodynamics are far

more extensive and demanding than those for passenger
cars. Since many of the relevant aerodynamic features
cannot be measured easily, if at all, Computational Fluid
Dynamics (CFD) provides a detailed insight into the flow
phenomena and helps in understanding the underlying
physics.

Since Class 1 racing cars are so powerful (approx. 380

kW), many other factors must also be carefully considered. For example, the required downward forces and
balancing must be provided without significantly impairing the drag coefficient. In addition, the cooling systems
for the engine, brakes, and electronic devices and the
efficiency of the engine intake system are of vital importance.

This paper summarizes some aspects of the aerodynamic optimization process for the Opel Calibra ITC racing car, starting from the production car design and
including exterior and interior aerodynamic computations,
together with wind tunnel experiments.

To fulfill these tasks, the following aerodynamic features

were developed and applied to the Opel ITC racing car
Calibra (Fig.2):

INTRODUCTION

rear wing with gurney (1)

The design regulations for the Class 1 Racing Car Championship ITC, as for its predecessor DTM, have become
increasingly more liberal. It has proved necessary to add
highly sophisticated aerodynamic features, in order to
improve the aerodynamics of the racing cars and hence
achieve competitiveness. This has resulted in greater
technical differences between racing cars and their corresponding production vehicles.

underbody almost completely covered (2)

diffuser channels separated by strakes (3)
wooden bars at each side of the vehicle to reduce the
underbody flow leakage (4)
wheel-house ventilation (5)
variable device using a set of flaps to shut the inlet of
the engine cooling duct (6)

Fig.1 explains the enormous significance of drag optimization for racing cars. Due to the high speeds, a small
increase in drag leads to a substantial rise in the required
engine power needed to overcome this drag. For example, the Calibra racing car has a drag coefficient (CD) of
about 0.36 for a particular setup, whereas the value for
the equivalent Calibra production vehicle is only 0.26,
which is the lowest for all production passenger cars. The
higher drag coefficient of the Calibra racing car is mainly
caused by the rear wing, needed to provide the desired
downward force. All values in Fig.1 concerning the
required additional engine power are given with respect
to this particular setup.

brake cooling duct (7)

front splitter (8)

AERODYNAMICS DEVELOPMENT
The development of racing cars is characterized by
extremely short design cycles. Hence, to achieve all the
required objectives, there must be a very close interaction between experimental and computational activities.
In addition, each engineering discipline must focus on ist
own particular strengths in order to maximize effectiveness.

In the past, aerodynamic development was mainly performed in wind tunnels, ignoring the relative movement
between the vehicle and the ground. However, our preliminary wind tunnel tests, performed with rotating as well
as non-rotating wheels, showed that the relative movement of the vehicle with respect to the ground has a significant effect on the underbody flow (Fig.3). All values in
Fig.3 are denoted with respect to the drag coefficient for
the baseline racing car with fixed wheels and ground.

teristics, rather than to calculate values such as drag or

lift coefficients. This approach seems to be the only feasible one as current computer codes are not able to predict
drag and lift with the required accuracy [5]. Certain tasks
such as setup optimizations, which are characterized by
very small design changes e.g. an inclination or offset of
the rear wing, can be performed much more quickly by
means of experimental devices than by computational
analyses.

The importance of more sophisticated tests can be illustrated as follows: measurements for cars with non-rotating wheels indicated that only one modification completely covering the underbody - leads to an
improved drag coefficient, whereas all other options
increase the drag. However, in contrast to these results,
the realistic setup, which included rotating wheels and
movement relative to the ground, showed improvements
for all cases. A general rule is that a test gives higher
drag coefficients when performed with rotating wheels
than with non-rotating wheels. Considering the very low
ground clearance of a racing car (approx. 30 mm) this
effect could be predicted. Consequently, all wind tunnel
tests and computational models, especially those used to
simulate underbody flow phenomena, must include rotating wheels and movement relative to the ground.

Some simulations were performed using simplified submodels, which included all relevant aerodynamic features, in order to save time.

AERODYNAMICS OPTIMIZATION
ENGINE COOLING DUCTS The main tasks were to
achieve a uniform flow through the radiator and to minimize the interaction of the external flow and the flow leaving the duct. Here, a simplified model of the front body
was used to enable easier geometry modifications and
faster turnaround. The vehicle was assumed to be symmetric, so that a half model of the front body, from the
front splitter to the B-pillar, was employed. The underbody flow and the wheel rotation were not included.
The baseline geometry led to a relatively strong interaction between the external flow and the flow exiting the
cooling duct, which generated an extended flow separation near the front wheel (Fig.7a). This large recirculation
zone widened the vehicles aerodynamic effective crosssection, so that the drag increases.

The following paragraphs describe some of the aerodynamic features mentioned above, in more detail:

COMPUTATIONAL MODEL
In addition to numerous wind tunnel tests, the development of most of the aerodynamic features was supported
extensively by Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). A
three-dimensional wind tunnel model was created, containing 3.6 million fluid cells. The fine detail of this computational mesh can be seen in Fig.4, which displays the
surface grid for the vehicle. The turbulent flow is calculated with the CFD code STAR-CD [3], solving Reynoldsaveraged Navier-Stokes equations with a RNG k-e turbulence model [4]. The computational model included all
relevant aerodynamic features mentioned above (Fig.2),
and assumed the racing car to be symmetric. All main
interior ducts (engine cooling, brake cooling, airbox
intake) had to be modelled, as the interaction of the
external and internal flows was part of the investigation.
Rotating wheels and movement relative to the ground
were included, in order to simulate realistic road conditions.

Several duct shapes were analyzed in order to minimize

this effect. Due to package restrictions for the wheel
house and front fender regions, nearly all the modifications had to be carried out within the envelope of the
baseline duct. An additional constraint was that the air
flow through the radiator must remain uniform. All these
requirements made the use of CFD essential for a systematic optimization strategy.
The interaction among the two flow streams was considerably reduced (Fig.7b) by shape modifications between
the radiator and the outlet and by the introduction of
vanes. These vanes were inserted at the duct exit in
order to deflect the air flow leaving the cooling duct, so
that it became nearly tangential to the external flow.
Thus, the wake next to the front wheels almost disappeared.
A device to shut the cooling duct helped to completely
avoid the interaction of the two flows. This device consisted of several flaps, activated automatically by vehicle
speed and coolant temperature. The orientation of the
flaps at the fully open position was defined by the calculated flow velocities at the inlet plane of the duct. Thus,
the effect of the flaps on the flow for the fully open position could be minimized. With this device, when the flaps
are closed the drag coefficient can be reduced by up to
approximately 0.02.

The calculated flow velocities shown in Fig.5 and the c pdistribution near the surface of the car, see Fig.6, give an
overall view of the surface flow characteristics of the ITC
Calibra racing car.
Due to the huge size of the computational grid, the aerodynamics simulation of the complete racing car took too
much modelling and computing time for setup optimization or sensitivity studies to be performed. Consequently,
the aim of the CFD work was to predict trends and to
achieve a better understanding of qualitative flow charac2

FRONT END AERODYNAMICS Various front end configurations were simulated, in order to determine how the
external flow was affected by the internal flows through
the airbox, brake and engine cooling systems. Different
internal flows were considered, starting with a completely
closed front, which of course is not feasible. It was
assumed that the vehicle moved at 250 km/h and that the
engine was running at maximum rpm (approx. 12.000
rpm). Fig.8 displays the normalized pressure distribution
in the symmetry plane. Clearly, the internal flows led to
considerable changes in the front end pressure distribution. In particular, the low pressure region at the front of
the hood (case 1) almost disappeared when the internal
ducts were open (cases 3 and 4). This effect is more
important for racing cars than for ordinary passenger
cars, as racing car engines operate at higher rpms for a
given vehicle speed so that the ratio of the air flow
through the airbox to the external flow is much higher.

In order to improve the diffuser performance, firstly the

diffuser angle was optimized. Additionally, strakes were
used to subdivide this region into several separate channels, reducing leakage of the underbody flow. Furthermore the front splitter and the position of the strakes were
modified to increase and direct the underbody flow and
hence reduce the influence of the flow around the
wheels. Due to these design modifications, the flow was
then completely attached to the upper side of the diffuser
(Fig.11b), giving a low pressure level at the rear underbody. The higher underbody flow rate additionally
decreased the static pressure and thereby led to a higher
downward force.

CONCLUSION
Aerodynamics optimization is of vital importance in
achieving competitiveness for racing cars, because of
their very high performance levels. The extremely short
design cycle for such a vehicle requires very close cooperation between experimental and computational development work.

These results demonstrate that the internal flows must be

taken into account for an accurate prediction of the front
end flow.
REAR WING Since the Calibra is shaped like a coup,
the rear wing configuration was of major concern. Systematic experimental and computational studies were
performed with different multi-component airfoil configurations and gurney lengths, in order to achieve both low
drag and well balanced maximum downward forces on
the axles.

Experimental data and computational results together

show that the simulation of racing car aerodynamics must
include the modelling of all aerodynamic car features.
The optimization strategy for the Opel Calibra racing car
involved the following:
Internal flows (airbox, engine and brake cooling duct)
must be taken into account to simulate the correct
front end body flow. The re-entering of these flows
into the external flow is of major importance, because
they can have a major effect on external flow characteristics.

These studies revealed an important rear design consideration: Fig.9 shows the computed air flow velocity vectors near the rear wing for the early Calibra styling body
(production car) quantifying the flow angle close to the
leading edge of the rear wing. It was found that the inflow
velocity vector changed its orientation from middle to side
body section. The rear spoiler in the current vehicle was
redesigned to perform in this way and was then measured in the wind tunnel. The new design led to an 8%
increase in downward force, with the same drag force as
a conventional design with constant wing angles. Fig.10
displays the calculated flow field and pressure distribution
for this optimized multi-component airfoil. Overall, the
experimental and computational optimization indicated
that coup-styled racing cars need to be treated differently to notchback cars.

The very low ground clearance of racing cars means

that rotating wheels and movement relative to the
ground must be modelled in order to accurately predict the underbody flow. Measured data show that
neglecting the relative movement of the vehicle and
the wheels with respect to the ground may sometimes lead to completely wrong results when determining the influence of geometry modifications on
the lift and drag coefficients. This means that a model
with non-rotating wheels and fixed with respect to the
ground cannot even predict trends reliably.
To achieve the required results in time, some analyses had to be performed using simplified computational models. However, even these models
contained all significant local aerodynamic features.

DIFFUSER The diffuser is an important means of

increasing the downward force at the rear axle. The optimum diffuser angle for lift and drag was determined by an
extensive series of wind tunnel tests. These tests were
performed in the wind tunnel in Emmen, Switzerland,
which has facilities to simulate rotating wheels and movement relative to the ground.

This aerodynamic optimization, characterized by the

simultaneous application of experimental and computational tools, together with the close cooperation of all
engineers involved, was part of the success of the Opel
Calibra Class 1 racing car, winning the ITC Championship in 1996.

The results of the three-dimensional simulation of the

complete racing car showed that the flow around the rear
wheels disturbed the flow at the diffuser intake, so that
flow separations occured inside the diffuser channels
(Fig.11a).
3

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

2. F. Indra, Welche Vorteile bringt der Motorsport fr die

Serienentwicklung?, Automobil Revue 16, 1994
3. Computational Dynamics Ltd., STAR-CD Manual Version
3.0, 1997
4. V. Yakhot, S.A. Orszag, Renormalization group analysis
of turbulence. J. Scientific Computing, 1:1-51, 1992
5. M. Ramnefors et al., Accuracy of Drag Predictions on
Cars Using CFD - Effect of Grid Refinement and Turbulence Models, SAE Paper 960681

The authors thank F. Ross, adapco, who performed some

of the flow calculations.

REFERENCES
1. H. Emmelmann, H. Berneburg, J. Schulze, The Aerodynamic Development of the Opel Calibra, SAE Paper
900317

Figure 1. Required additional engine power for different drag coefficients

Figure 2. Aerodynamic features of the OPEL Calibra ITC racing car

Figure 3. Impact of different wind-tunnel setups on the drag coefficient

Figure 4. Computational mesh at the surface of the vehicle

Figure 5. Calculated flow velocities near surface

(Rotating wheels and moving windtunnel ground)

Figure 6. Calculated pressure distribution on the surface

(Rotating wheels and moving ground)

Figure 7. Horizontal section through the cooling duct (simplified model)

a) Baseline design
b) Optimized design
7

Figure 8. Impact on different internal flows on the pressure distribution at the front-end

Figure 9. Inflow vector orientation near leading edge of rear wing

(Calculated vector field for Calibra styling model)

Figure 10. Calculated flow field and pressure distribution at rear wing of the Opel Calibra ITC racing car

Figure 11. Calculated diffuser flow field for two underbody designs
a) Baseline diffuser, strakes and splitter configuration
b) Optimized diffuser, strakes and splitter configuration

10