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Computational Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Cambridge University Engineering Department, Trumpington St.,
Cambridge CB2 1PZ, UK
2
A top UK Formula 1 team
Abstract
A detailed project has been carried out to investigate the aerodynamic performance of a
Formula 1 car front wheel. Experimental drag measurements were carried out on a 40%
scale rig representing the front right-hand quarter of a generic Formula 1 car, with
features such as the front wing and car body modelled accurately to generate a suitable
oweld around the wheel. Smoke ow visualization gave valuable insights into the
major ow features and enabled understanding of how the wheel aerodynamic performance might be improved. Further visualization was carried out using a fully 3D
CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) analysis of the test rig geometry, using state-ofthe-art in-house geometry handling and CFD facilities based around an unstructured
NavierStokes solver. Drag measurements were successfully obtained for a large range
of typical car congurations, including front wing endplate variations. The experimental
and computational ow visualization enabled a new front wing geometry to be designed,
which gave a signicant reduction in the drag of the wheel.
Keywords: Formula 1, aerodynamics, CFD, ow visualization, wheels
Introduction
Governing bodies of many categories of motor
racing specify that the wheels of the racing cars
must be exposed to oncoming airow. These
stipulations act, for example, to preserve the
character of the sport, and to give safety benets
such as enabling drivers to detect brake lock. Such
regulations have a signicant effect on the aerodynamic performance of the cars, causing for example
a large increase in overall drag (Morelli 1969).
The difference between winning and losing in
Formula 1 can often come down to fractions of a
Correspondence address:
William Kellar, CFD Laboratory, Cambridge University
Engineering Department, Trumpington St.,
Cambridge CB2 1PZ, UK.
Tel.: +44 (0)1223 332869. Fax: +44 (0)1223 332662.
E-mail: wpk20@eng.cam.ac.uk
percent in car performance; these small performance increments can represent signicant nancial
investment. The net drag of Formula 1 cars is
very signicant to the overall car performance
and, of this net value, the signicant component
caused by the exposed wheels is dependent on the
surrounding oweld. Changing this oweld to
improve car performance is relatively easy compared with, for example, squeezing a few more
horsepower from the engine, so there are signicant benets in both development cost and
performance to be found in the area of wheel and
front-quarter aerodynamics (Hanna 1995). The
oweld structure is highly complex and threedimensional (Sawley 1997) and, to enable insights
into this ow for design optimization, good
visualization techniques are necessary. A limited
amount of literature (Cogotti 1982, Hucho 1987)
gives further details on previous experimental
work in this area.
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Experimental testing
Wind tunnel test rig
A 40% scale model of the front right-hand quarter
of a generic Formula 1 car was used for experimental testing. This model essentially conformed
to the relevant FIA (Federation Internationale
de l'Automobile) regulations of 1998 governing
the external shape and geometry of Formula 1 cars.
A solid body and suspension system was mounted
on a rigid backboard, with a false oor representing
the ground plane. A 40% Formula 1-type wheel
was free to turn on the suspension axle.
Wheel rotation was achieved through the false
oor, by a variable speed drivewheel in contact with
the tyre. The deciencies of this wheel rotation
method, compared to a more realistic rolling-road
set-up, were compensated for by calculating the
development of the boundary layer displacement
thickness along the false oor with a combined
laminar (Thwaites) and turbulent (7th power law)
method. This indicated the clearance of the wheel,
relative to the ground plane, which would best
model the correct ow in the contact patch region.
This clearance causes only a small change in wheel
drag of a few percent (Cogotti 1982) as long as the
gap is less than about 10% of the wheel radius, and
this change is well quantied.
The wheel suspension was pin-jointed, and
instrumented to measure drag via a strain gauge
bridge and signal amplier. This strain gauge
bridge was mounted on a tie-bar connecting the
wheel axle region to the backboard of the model
under the nosecone tip. The signal processing
consisted of a low-pass lter, amplier and oscilloscope; the lter removed noise due to the wheel
rotation and other vibrations. The arms of the
suspension were given removable aerofoil shrouds,
to investigate the effect of suspension prole on the
front wheel oweld. These aerofoil shrouds took
the form of symmetrical standard NACA aerofoils
with maximum thickness 22 mm and chord 80 mm,
aligned parallel to the ground plane.
The wing was designed to give similar lift
characteristics to a generic Formula 1 wing. This
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endplate.
onto the front wheels, and to improve the aerodynamic characteristics of the wing. It should be
emphasized that no attempt was made here to
investigate in detail the actual performance of the
wing itself.
An underbody diffuser passage was designed, to
give the effect of underbody ow entrainment in the
front wheel region which occurs for a real car this
ow could be relevant in terms of wheel drag. This
design was fairly speculative as the absence of a
moving ground plane would signicantly alter the
diffuser performance. The diffuser took the form of
a diverging passage formed by a at plate on the
underside of the car body, and the ground plane.
This plate was shaped in accordance with the
relevant FIA regulations (except for the omission
of a step perpendicular to the direction of air ow),
i.e. the shape was a simplied approximation to the
plan view of the car, from the front of the cockpit
backwards, and the leading edge of the plate was
located under the front of the cockpit region. The
plate was aligned to diverge from the ground plane
towards the rear of the car, at an angle of 0.7.
On the 40% scale model described here, the leading
edge of the plate was 10 mm from the ground plane.
The sidepod ducts were lled with a honeycomb
material at a variety of angles to the duct walls. This
material was chosen to give suitable pressure losses
in the ow through the duct, and the intention was to
investigate the upstream inuence of the sidepod
ow on the wheel wake development.
Smoke ow visualization
Smoke ow was achieved over the whole 40%
model with the use of a second, open-circuit wind
tunnel. This could only be operated at very low
speed to maintain the visibility of the smoke. The
tunnel was operated at a low Reynolds number
of 25 103, based on wheel diameter. Other
limitations in the simulation were the signicant
blockage of the model in the working section,
and the absence of wheel rotation due to the
prohibitive size of the drive mechanism. These
limitations meant that the smoke ow results were
taken only as illustrative of the general features of
the oweld, rather than as denitive information
on detailed characteristics such as the ow separation points on the front wing. Use of a smoke
probe enabled fully 3D investigation of the ow as
smoke could be injected at any point in the
domain.
Experimental results
Test programme
The test rig offered a large number of possible
experimental congurations. Baseline results were
obtainable for the wheel in isolation. The wind
tunnel programme tested all possible conguration
variations, and a drag coefcient value was obtained
for each case.
1999 Blackwell Science Ltd Sports Engineering (1999) 2, 203212
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Smoke ow results
The smoke ow testing programme was much the
same as the experimental drag programme, in that
all possible congurations were tested systematically (here without wheel rotation). The repeatabil-
CFD results
A ow solution was successfully obtained for the
basic test rig geometry, i.e. the wheel and front
wing, with a at wing endplate. The domain was
discretized into 340 524 cells. The solution CPU
time was approximately 15 h on a Pentium II
233 MHz workstation (it is noted that the time
taken to generate this solution from the initial
geometry denition was signicantly reduced from
typical times; see Kellar et al. 1999). The net mass
ow error in the solution was 0.08%, illustrating good convergence in the numerical method.
Graphical postprocessing enabled scalar and vector
uid parameters to be plotted with ease in 3D, and
a representative selection of results is reproduced
here in Figs 6 and 8.
Discussion of results
Smoke visualization
The smoke tests gave very good information on the
full 3D nature of the oweld; however, it should
be reiterated that the experimental limitations
mean the results are purely representative of the
general oweld. The main characteristics of the
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Numerical visualization
Figure 8 CFD visualization results; representative streamline
plot.
Drag measurements
The overall set of experimental drag measurements
shows signicant variation between the different
congurations tested; this in conjunction with the
oweld changes noted previously shows the
importance in terms of drag of the car front quarter
geometry changing the wheel oweld. The most
signicant points from the results are as follows.
The tests carried out in the absence of a front
wing gave relatively high drag results. This was due
to the symmetry of the wheel ow being affected
only by the body without the tempering effect of
wing vorticity. These two tests were essentially
carried out to satisfy experimental curiosity as a
Formula 1 car would never be expected to run
under normal conditions without a wing; the
discussion hereafter relates only to those results
taken with a wing present on the rig.
The mean drag coefcient over all congurations
with a wing and endplate present is 0.456 0.003 for
a stationary wheel and 0.470 0.003 for a rotating
wheel. These values are taken as the generic baseline
results for this series of experiments. These results
compare well with those of previous studies (Fackrell
& Harvey 1973, Cogotti 1982), taking into account
that here we modelled the entire front quarter
of the car rather than a wheel in isolation.
In general, the introduction of a front wing and
endplate decreases wheel drag. This appears to be
due to the strong vorticity from the front wing
and endplate causing the wheel wake to straighten,
Sports Engineering (1999) 2, 203212 1999 Blackwell Science Ltd
Conclusions
The wake of a Formula 1 car wheel was found to
consist of a signicant region of separated ow.
This region is formed by ow separating from the
crown and sidewalls of the wheel, which recirculates into the convergent region of the lower
downstream portion of the wheel. The shape of
the wake is inuenced by horseshoe vortices shed
from the wheel, and the overall wake symmetry is
affected by aerodynamic features of the car as a
whole.
The aerodynamic drag of the wheel is signicantly
affected by the symmetry characteristics of the wheel
wake. A more symmetrical wake appears to give a
reduced drag. This symmetry is strongly dependent
on the vortical ow shed from the front wing.
The exact design of the car front wing and
associated endplate could signicantly affect the
nature of the vortical ow leaving the front wing,
and thus also the wheel drag.
Flow visualization, both experimental and numerical, gives invaluable insights into the wheel
oweld characteristics. This enabled the oweld
to be manipulated by a new wheel forebody design,
which signicantly reduced wheel drag.
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Future work could hope to address the significance of the geometry changes considered here
on the performance of the wing itself. The effects
of wheel yaw under steering could also be considered.
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