Integrated CAD/CFD Visualisation

of a G e n e r i c Formula 1 Car Front W h e e l

Flowfield
W P Kellar, A M Savill, and W N Dawes
Computational Fluid Dynamics Laboratory,
Cambridge University Engineering Dept.,
Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1PZ, UK
wpk209
cam. ac. uk
h t t p ://www2. eng. cam. ac. uk/,.-mea/fluid/cfdlab/cfdlab, html

A b s t r a c t . As part of a detailed project investigating racing car wheel

aerodynamics, a CAD/CFD (Computer Aided Design - Computational
Fluid Dynamics) interface has been used to enable CFD numerical flow
visualisation for a generic racing car geometry. The interface was developed and improved through assessment and integration of industrial
and baseline CAD formats with the requirements of an in-house stateof-the-art unstructured Navier-Stokes CFD package. The resulting CFD
solution was proved to correlate well with experimental visualisation, and
was useful in optimising a front spoiler. The time taken to move from an
initial geometry definition to a CFD solution was reduced from typical
times, for the types of geometry tested, by a factor of about five.

Introduction: C F D in A u t o m o t i v e A p p l i c a t i o n s

Governing bodies of m a n y categories of motor racing specify t h a t the wheels of

the racing cars must be exposed as to oncoming flow. Such regulations have a
significant effect on the vehicle aerodynamics, causing a drag coefficient rise of
1507o [1] due to the addition of unshrouded wheels to a streamlined car body.
The complex flowfield nature [2] suggests the value of 3D flow visualisation to
gain insight into key characteristics. Such visualisation methods are surprisingly
not often undertaken by motor racing teams, who concentrate on experimental
parametric measurements of the overall aerodynamic performance complemented
by local CFD analyses.
A CFD analysis improves the aerodynamic design process by allowing preliminary investigation of the performance of a large number of designs, without
the associated cost and time required for prototype manufacture and experimental testing. Those designs which are indicated by the CFD to be the most
promising can then be taken to the physical prototype stage. The turnover time
of any CFD analysis is therefore an issue, to make it as useful a design tool as
possible.

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Current industrial CFD codes obtain 3D flow solutions by solving steady

viscous Navier-Stokes equations within a discretised domain. Appropriate turbulence modelling is important in automotive applications due to the significant
wakes and separated flows. Unstructured grids are almost universally used for
the surface and domain discretisation [3] [4] due to the typically complex nature
of the component surface geometries. Use of CFD in Formula 1 is particularly
well advanced.
However, a major practical bottleneck is the C A D / C F D interface. Commercial CAD packages do not support the precise surface definitions necessary for
the construction of a CFD mesh. The generation of any CFD mesh [4] requires
that the component surface be uniquely and consistently defined topologically;
although this is at least cosmetically possible with commercial CAD, the true
underlying geometry data is deficient in a number of areas.

oil m

' 1 A

'

(b) True underlying IGES data

Fig. 1. CAD data for a pair of intersecting cylinders. The cosmetic representation of
the surface intersections is clear in (a); an inspection of the true IGES data (b) reveals
this information to be absent in the actual data file.

An example of this problem is intersection data; a series of complex intersecting surfaces can be simulated as such in commercial CAD, but the underlying
data (typically IGES format - International Graphics Exchange Standard) does
not contain the intersection information (Fig. 1). Instead, the intersection geometry is re-calculated by the CAD package every time the component is accessed.
The reason for this method of data handling is to enable the complex inter-

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section information to be stored in an efficient manner - however, all packages
wishing to use the geometry must then also have some intersection algorithm to
interpret the data. The developing nature of CFD tools means that such complex data analysis algorithms are at an early stage. Thus the use of IGES data
in CFD currently involves significant manual intervention, and constitutes the
major time constraint in the C A D / C F D process.
Commercial C A D / C F D interfaces currently treat the CAD definition by the
manual fitting of mesh patches to the underlying CAD entity; i.e. by computer
operator intervention rather than a fully automatic procedure. This takes place
at the pre-processing end of the CFD package. The entirety of the CAD entity
must be mapped to give a surface which is uniquely defined topologically - this
process is essentially the manual definition of the surface intersections. Individual
CAD components are often treated as separate units, so that mesh sections
representing these components can be investigated individually.
These manual processes are known as 'rubber-banding' and 'boxing' respectively, and currently take significantly more time than, for example, the CFD
solution calculation. The procedure of obtaining a CFD mesh from an initial
CAD geometry currently takes of the order of six man-weeks, whilst a CFD
solution (for a typical mesh of around 500,000 cells) takes around 1-2 days on
a Pentium II 450 MHz workstation - this can be reduced to a few hours on a
Hitachi SR2201 256 processor supercomputer using a parallel solution algorithm.
CFD flow solutions are commonly analysed in terms of local fluid parameters
and certain global features such as streamlines. The 'boxing' process enables
direct comparison of CFD results with experimental results for parameters such
as wheel drag, being a vital process for many reasons.
2

Background

A full range of CAD to CFD facilities is currently being developed within the
new CFD lab at Cambridge University Engineering Department, to enable CAD
geometry manipulation to be carried out using commercial packages, subsequent
CFD surface and volume meshing to be performed using an established procedure
[4], and flow solutions to then be obtained with a state-of-the-art viscous 3D
Navier-Stokes (Reynolds time-averaged) code [5] (see 2.3). The racing car wheel
aerodynamics project was among the first to test the practicability of such a
C A D / C F D interface, and played an important role in defining and perfecting
the best approach.
2.1

Geometrical (CAD) Modelling

The CAD model comprised a 40% scale representation of the front right-hand
portion of a generic Formula 1 car. The modelling was carried out in a representative commercial package and in a more basic in-house format [4] to facilitate
detailed investigation of the geometry characteristics, and to determine which
format would provide the quickest route to a CFD mesh and solution.

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Fig. 2. In-house CAD format representation of the front right-hand corner of a generic
Formula 1 car. The arrows indicate the unit normals to the CAD patches - necessary
information for the surface meshing procedure. The parametric surface definitions are
shown as rectangular nets.

The in-house format was the most likely to successfully interface with the
surface mesher, whilst the commercial package was the easiest on which to create realistic geometries. The in-house format could be summarised as a format
in which a component is defined as a series of patches with (x,y,z) vertex coordinates, edge coordinates, surface parametric definitions and topological surface
designations. The format was structured intrinsically to contain the rigorous
topological information necessary for mesh construction [6]. This basic CAD
definition represented the wheel as a cylinder, with only essential additional
model features such as the front spoiler arrangement - see Fig. 2. The relatively
user-friendly interface of the commercial CAD package enabled extra features
(specifically the car body) to be modelled. However, the lack of patch intersection data and the subsequently necessary manual intervention prevented further
development of the commercial CAD file at this stage. Development of a rigorous
geometry intersection algorithm for the CFD package is currently underway [7],
to fully automate the handling of commercial CAD geometry data.
2.2

Surface and V o l u m e M e s h i n g - D o m a i n D i s c r e t i s a t i o n

A surface mesh was constructed from the rigorous geometry definition of the
baseline CAD file. The triangulation was automatic, based on a Delaunay triangulation algorithm [4] [8]. This represents a significant advance over typical
commercial CFD meshing procedures, in which fundamental mesh parameters
such as edge node spacing must be specified by hand for each edge - a very
time-consuming process. However, a degree of manual mesh optimisation is still

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possible in this instance, and this enabled a fine mesh to be formed over regions
of interest, e.g. the wheel and spoiler. The wheel only was modelled as viscous,
to reduce the total number of cells required in the mesh to resolve viscous effects.
The resultant surface mesh can be seen in Fig. 3 - the computer requirements
for the generation of such triangulation are around five minutes C P U time on a
Pentium II 450 MHz workstation. The desire to keep the number of mesh cells
to an optimal minimum is aimed at minimising the solution computation time
(see 2.3).
Further geometrical optimisation was required due to particular flow modelling considerations. For example, the wing was modelled with a continuous
patch over the leading edge to give good surface discretisation in a fluid region
of high significance. Development is underway of a method to parameterise such
geometries so t h a t similar geometrical optimisation could be automatically carried out. A surface mesh was also obtained of a hybrid CAD file - a combination
of commercial and baseline CAD entities. This mesh required highly detailed
triangulation to resolve the complex geometry of the commercial CAD patches,
and optimisation of the number of cells in the mesh was not considered in the
project.

Fig. 3. Meshes of in-house format CAD file. The volume mesh is illustrated with a characteristic slice through the domain. The meshes show good resolution of the underlying
CAD, good equilateral triangulation in the surface mesh, and good tetrahedralisation
in the volume mesh. The ground plane mesh is omitted for clarity.

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Volume meshing was based directly upon the surface mesh triangulation. The
volume meshing algorithm was essentially a 'black box', giving a volume mesh
output for a surface mesh input. The method used was Delaunay tetrahdralisation, which gives a unique and optimal mesh solution [4]; consideration was
given in the algorithm to sliver cells which are not helpful for a CFD solution.
The volume mesh used for the flow solution is shown in Fig. 3. The complexity
of the mesh supports the use of an automatic unstructured algorithm, compared
with the alternative of producing a structured mesh of the same quality. The
normal computing requirements for the generation of such a mesh are 1-2 hours
CPU time on a Pentium II 450 MHz workstation.

2.3

Obtaining A F l o w S o l u t i o n

The numerical method used in this study was the unstructured tetrahedral mesh
method of Dawes [5] called NEWT. This method has been used successfully in
a number of applications, ranging from unsteady turbomachinery flows to the
simulation of oil rig explosion scenarios. The equations solved are the fully 3D
unsteady Reynolds time-averaged Navier-Stokes equations expressed in a strong
conservation form. Turbulence closure is provided by the k-c model together
with a modified low Reynolds number model handling near-wall regions and
transition. Assuming a piecewise linear variation of variables over the faces of the
tetrahedral cells, a second-order-accurate discretisation of the convective fluxes
is achieved. The net flux imbalance into each cell is used to update the flow field
variables at the mesh nodes, using four-stage Runge-Kutta time integration.
The solution code is being developed within the CFD laboratory at Cambridge University Engineering Department into a parallel version to run on multiprocessor workstations, which will enable upwards of 1,000,000 cells to be solved
in a reasonable time. A mesh of 650,000 cells has been solved with this parallel version (using non-optimal mesh decomposition) in eight hours on a Hitachi
SR2201 256 processor supercomputer.
In this study, the flow was calculated at a nominal Mach number of 0.3. This
was to avoid convergence problems in a low-speed simulation calculated with a
compressible code.

2.4

A s s o c i a t e d E x p e r i m e n t a l Work

As an important corroboration of the numerical results, a complementary experimental study was carried out on the model geometry [9]. This work comprised
wheel drag coefficient measurement for a number of typical geometry configurations, and corresponding smoke flow visualisation. The nature of the smoke flow
visualisation was limited by practical considerations, e.g. blockage effects and
the low tunnel speed needed to keep the smoke visible.

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3
3.1

Results With Discussion

C F D Numerical Results

A flow solution for the in-house CAD file was obtained successfully. The final
volume mesh (Fig. 3) had 340,524 cells. The C P U time was approximately fifteen
hours on a Pentium II 450 MHz workstation. The net mass flow error between
inlet and outlet was 0.08%, illustrating good solution convergence. The time
taken to reach this solution from the initial CAD stage was reduced by a factor
of around five from typical C A D / C F D interface times.
Graphic post-processing enabled fluid parameters, e.g. Mach number, to be
shown as contours, and streamlines through the flow (Fig. 4) could be plotted
to show features of interest.

Fig. 4. CFD flow solution - sample plan view of wheel flowfield. Flow direction is leftright. The streamlines start in the left of the figure, in a plane parallel to the ground
that passes through the middle of the front spoiler,

3.2

Corresponding Experimental Results

The smoke flow results were recorded photographically and on video. T h e results
were summarised graphically (Fig. 5) to show the m a j o r features of the flowfield.

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Fig. 5. Smoke flow visualisation results - plan view of wheel fiowfield. The flow is leftright, The streamlines start in similar locations to those in the CFD solution, only
slightly nearer the ground plane.

3.3

Results Comparisons

The fiowfield was clearly similar in the two visualisation techniques, despite the
different flow conditions considered. The results were largely qualitative due to
the limitations specified previously.
The CFD solution illustrated the wheel flowfield to be described by an asymmetric wake, which was formed by crown separation and horseshoe vortices from
the lower downstream part of the wheel. The wake symmetry was influenced by
the strongly vortical flow leaving the front spoiler arrangement. In terms of local
flow parameters, the CFD results gave indications of, for example, stagnation
points on solid surfaces. Detailed information such as this was obtained most
easily from CFD results.
Full quantitative CFD results were not achievable due to the relatively high
velocities of the simulation, and the lack of an automatic 'boxing' procedure.
However, a simple integration of pressure distributions acting on the front spoiler
elements suggested that the simulation lift coefficient compared very well with
experimental results [9].
The numerical visualisation of the flowfield characteristics enabled the development of experimental geometry features intended to optimise aerodynamic
performance. A significant experimental wheel drag reduction was achieved based
on a spoiler modification design deduced directly from the CFD results.

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Concluding Remarks

- The C A D / C F D interface facilities can produce a 3D CFD solution for a usefully complex CAD geometry. Caution is needed in assessing the results due
to the relatively untested and not fully automatic nature of the procedure.
- To obtain a CFD solution from scratch, it appeared to be best (for the
configurations tested) to start from a simple CAD format. Future work is
needed to automate such C A D / C F D interfacing with commercial packages
- this could also enable parametric CAD design optimisation.
- A CFD solution for a wheel flowfield gave valuable information on the flow
characteristics. This numerical visualisation was well matched to experimental smoke flow results.
- It was necessary, although only partially possible in this instance, to validate
the CFD measurements with detailed quantitative information.
- ~-~lrther work in this area could hope to apply wheel rotation in the numerical analysis. Additional geometry variations could also be tested, along
with effects such as wheel yaw under steering which are difficult to simulate
experimentally.

References
1. Morelli, A.: 'Aerodynamic Actions on an Automobile Wheel'. Road Vehicle Aerodynamics. London (1969)
2. Sawley, M. L.: Numerical Simulation of the Flow Around a Formula 1 Car. EPFL
Supercomputing Review. (11/1997) 11-17
3. Hanna, R. K.: The Role of Unstructured CFD in the Development Process for
Formula 1 Racing Cars. Autotech (1995). C498/36/244
4. Dawes, W. N.: The Generation of 3D, Stretched, Viscous Unstructured Meshes for
Arbitrary Domains. ASME (1996) 96-GT-55
5. Dawes, W. N.: The Practical Application of Solution-Adaption to the Numerical
Simulation of Complex Turbomachinery Problems. Prog. Aerospace Sci. (1992).
vol. 29 pp. 221-269
6. Connell, S. D.; Braaten M. E.: Semi-Structured Mesh Generation for 3D NavierStokes Calculations. AIAA Journal (1995). vol. 33 no 6 pp 1017-1024
7. Sinclair, F. M.: From CAD to CFD - Interior Volume Removal as a Data Conversion
Tool. Cambridge University Engineering Dept., Cambridge, UK.
8. Dhanasekaran, P. C.; Demaxgne, A. A. J.: Surface Mesh Generator (version 1.8)
manual. Whittle Laboratory, Cambridge University Engineering Dept., Cambridge,
UK.
9. Pearse, S. R. G.: Effects of Formula 1 Style Forebodies on Exposed Racing Car
Wheels. MEng submission (1998). Cambridge University Engineering Dept., Cambridge, UK.