Downloaded from SAE International by Birmingham City Univ, Sunday, August 19, 2018

SAE TECHNICAL
PAPER SERIES 2007-01-0901

Optimization of the Aerodynamic Design

of Supermileage Vehicle
Sagar Maji
Delhi College of Engineering

Himanshu Almadi
Maruti Udyog Limited

2007 World Congress

Detroit, Michigan
April 16-19, 2007

400 Commonwealth Drive, Warrendale, PA 15096-0001 U.S.A. Tel: (724) 776-4841 Fax: (724) 776-0790 Web: www.sae.org
 Downloaded from SAE International by Birmingham City Univ, Sunday, August 19, 2018

By mandate of the Engineering Meetings Board, this paper has been approved for SAE publication upon
completion of a peer review process by a minimum of three (3) industry experts under the supervision of
the session organizer.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior written permission of SAE.

For permission and licensing requests contact:

SAE Permissions
400 Commonwealth Drive
Warrendale, PA 15096-0001-USA
Email: permissions@sae.org
Fax: 724-776-3036
Tel: 724-772-4028

For multiple print copies contact:

SAE Customer Service

Tel: 877-606-7323 (inside USA and Canada)
Tel: 724-776-4970 (outside USA)
Fax: 724-776-0790
Email: CustomerService@sae.org

ISSN 0148-7191
Copyright © 2007 SAE International
Positions and opinions advanced in this paper are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of SAE.
The author is solely responsible for the content of the paper. A process is available by which discussions
will be printed with the paper if it is published in SAE Transactions.

Persons wishing to submit papers to be considered for presentation or publication by SAE should send the
manuscript or a 300 word abstract of a proposed manuscript to: Secretary, Engineering Meetings Board, SAE.

Printed in USA
 Downloaded from SAE International by Birmingham City Univ, Sunday, August 19, 2018

2007-01-0901

Optimization of the Aerodynamic Design

of Supermileage Vehicle
Sagar Maji
Delhi College of Engineering

Himanshu Almadi
Maruti Udyog Limited

Copyright © 2007 SAE International

ABSTRACT The vehicle was designed as an inverted tricycle having

Three-dimensional numerical simulations using FLUENT
were performed to model the airflow over the
Supermileage vehicle. The purpose of the study was to
design the shape of the body shell of the vehicle,
powered from a self-developed electronic fuel injected
50cc four stroke engine, to achieve low drag. The
methodology focuses on an inside-out approach of
optimization of body shape through computation of
aerodynamic forces on a low mass vehicle. The
experimental measurements were carried out to validate
the results obtained from the computational model using
a 1:5 scale model of the vehicle body shell in a low
speed wind tunnel. Numerical solutions of pressure
distribution, drag and down force are reported and
compared with experimental data. The results shows a
considerable reduction in drag and negative lift in the
computational model, leading to improved fuel economy
in comparison to Supermileage 2005 vehicle’s design.
two wheels at the front and one at the rear. It used a
centrifugal clutch with single stage reduction having
chain drive. A fire wall separates the vehicle into two
compartments i.e. the engine and the driver
compartment with engine and power train mounted at the
rear end. Mechanical disc brake was used at the rear
wheel for braking.
The basic driving strategy was that of making the engine
accelerate the vehicle to an optimized speed [1] of about
60 Km/h, followed by coasting of the vehicle in which the
only resistance forces acting on the vehicle are that of
road tolling resistance and aerodynamic drag. After the
vehicle had decelerated to a lower optimized speed of
about 15 Km/h the engine is again started to repeat the
whole cycle again.

INTRODUCTION

The Supermileage event is organized under the aegis of

Society of Automotive Engineers at Marshall, Michigan,
USA, with about 40 teams participating in the event. The
teams are required to build a single person, fuel-efficient
vehicle based on a small four-cycle engine, which is
common to all the teams. The participating vehicles are
made to run on a specified course of 93.6 km and the
vehicle obtaining the highest fuel economy is declared as
the winner. The major shortcomings in the design of
2005 vehicle were unusually high vehicle weight and
poor aerodynamics of the body shell. Also, no major
modifications had been done to the engine. Gaining
extensively from the experience of Supermileage 2005, Fig. 1: Comparison of Aerodynamic Drag D as a
major modifications have been conceptualized in the percentage of total road load (D+R) for a
vehicle: supermileage vehicle and a typical mid-sized
sedan at varying cruising speeds
• Developing an Electronic Fuel Injected 50 cc four
stroke engine
After minimizing the weight of the vehicle to around 45
• Reduction in overall weight of the vehicle to about 40
kg, there’s a need to minimize the aerodynamic drag to
kg
maximize fuel economy. The down force is also to be
• Improved aerodynamics in the body shell
optimized to strike a good balance between increased
rolling resistance due to down force and vehicle dynamic
 Downloaded from SAE International by Birmingham City Univ, Sunday, August 19, 2018
stability while cornering. The need for investigating
aerodynamics at such low speeds stands justified as
70% of the total road load is contributed by aerodynamic
drag for the supermileage vehicle (Fig 1). This was
further augmented by comparing the potential savings in
power consumption over the drive cycle for the year
2005 and 2006 vehicles (Fig 2). The shaded region
shows the reduction in the power requirement for the
2006 design during the coasting mode with respect to
that of last year’s design. It can be easily interpreted that
for a speed of 60 Km/h, the decrease in power
requirement is as high as 67 %.
Fig. 2: Comparison of theoretical power consumption
over the proposed drive cycle for Supermileage
2005 and 2006 design
This paper outlines the development of
aerodynamics for the 2006 supermileage vehicle that
participated in Supermileage event in the year 2006.
MODEL DEVELOPMENT
DESIGN METHODOLOGY
Fig. 3: CAD model for the chassis to be used in 2006
Contrary to that of an aircraft, the design approach used
was an inside-out approach. The design of the
Aluminium chassis was provided by the chassis team
based upon strength and endurance requirements of the
vehicle. An aerodynamic bodyshell is to be designed to
envelop this chassis (Fig 3).
The limiting dimensions of the same upon visualising the
driver, components, space for driver movement and
engine cooling requirements, were:
• Wheelbase 1830 mm
• Height 380 mm
• Width 585 mm
The starting point was to define a general shape with the
low drag and low down force characteristics and then
modify this ideal shape to fit the particular needs of the
car. The body shell required a shape that will achieve
some degree of laminar flow and with minimized
separation [2, 3]. The logical choice for the side view and
top view of the car is a standard airfoil. This leaves what
is essential a teardrop shape. "The body of frontal area
S, which opposes a minimum drag to the airflow, is the
well-known "drop-shaped" body..."[4, 5]
Selection of 2D Developing a 3D
airfoils based on CAD model from the
CFD modeling selected airfoils
results
Validation of CFD CFD modeling of 3D
results using a 1:5 model for drag, lift,
scaled model in wind pressure distribution
tunnel etc.
Fig. 4: Design Methodology
SELECTION OF AIRFOILS
An airfoil is designed to have little drag as well as
produce lift. However, in the ground proximity, a
symmetrical airfoil leads to higher pressure drag as well
as negative lift. In order to counter this, an airfoil with
near flat lower-half profile (ClarkY) was compared with a
near symmetrical airfoil (NACA 64012) using the
technique of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
modeling. Using the overall dimensions set previously,
the airfoil needs a thickness to chord ratio of 12, and a
maximum thickness to be at a position 64% of the chord
aft of the leading edge. This places the maximum height
at the tip of the firewall. Based upon the results obtained
from the CFD modeling of these 2D airfoils, ClarkY airfoil
with flat bottom profile was selected. For the top view a
symmetrical NACA 0032 airfoil was selected as it
accommodates all the components and gives the driver
enough maneuvering space as required in the top view.
Wheel fairings for the front tires are also critical to
 Downloaded from SAE International by Birmingham City Univ, Sunday, August 19, 2018
aerodynamics of the bodyshell. For wheel and cockpit
fairings, Joukowsky airfoils were selected as they
replicate the wheel’s curvature and easily integrate them
with the rest of the body.
Fig. 5: Airfoils placed for top view, side view and wheel
& cockpit fairings
Fig. 6: Airfoils integrated to form a 3D surface of the
bodyshell
Fig. 7: CAD model for bodyshell and chassis
Once all the foils have been placed appropriately (Fig 5)
with respect to each other in two dimensions, they are
integrated into a three dimensional body with the help of
curves which conform to the profile of the used airfoils,
using the software tool SOLIDWORKS (Fig 6).
Fig. 8: Bodyshell formed using airfoils
The airfoil integration is terminated at the rear end using
b-spline curve that could leave enough room for rear
wheel and other drive train components to be placed
inside the bodyshell (Fig 7-8)
SIMULATION AND ANALYSIS
In the initial phase of development of aerodynamics,
software tool FLUENT was used to perform CFD
analysis for the 2D airfoils and full scale 3D model of the
bodyshell.
2D ANALYSIS
The major objective of two dimensional flow modeling
was selection of side view 2D airfoils for the purpose of
CAD model development. In order to formulate the basis
for optimizing this selection process, the following key
points were taken into consideration:
• Effect of proximity to the ground on the down force
• Coefficient of drag
• Transition from laminar to turbulent flow
• Level of turbulence intensity
Grid Generation
Software tool GAMBIT was used for grid generation. The
vertex data for the airfoil was imported into GAMBIT. A
flow domain is formed around the airfoil to simulate the
ground proximity (Fig 9-10).
Fig. 9: Grid for analysis of flow over ClarkY airfoil in
ground proximity
Fig. 10: Adaptive meshing to redefine the element
distribution based on initial results
Using the technique of adaptive meshing [6, 7] in
FLUENT, the grid was made finer in areas where results
changed quickly and coarser where they do not. This
further led to increase in number of elements to modify
the results to higher accuracy.
CFD Simulations
The grid was imported to FLUENT and a Realizable K-
epsilon model [8, 9] with standard wall treatment was
selected for modeling the flow over airfoil. The velocity of
flow was 60 Km/h in the X direction. The turbulence
intensity level was set to 10% and the turbulence length
scale was set to 1 m, thus signifying a highly turbulent
 Downloaded from SAE International by Birmingham City Univ, Sunday, August 19, 2018

flow. A velocity of equal to that of the flow was assigned Cd

to the ground in X direction to simulate the real time flow 0.06
for a moving ground. The surface roughness of the road 0.05
was also adjusted to the level of that at the test track. 0.04
The first order upwinding discretization was used for 0.03
solution control. 0.02
0.01
CFD Results
0
The analysis was done for NACA 64012 and ClarkY NACA 64012 NACA 64012 Clark Y with
airfoil (Fig 11) and the results were compared for without Ground with ground ground
downforce, aerodynamic drag and total pressure Fig. 13: Variation of Cd for different airfoils
distribution.

NACA 64012

Clark Y

Fig. 14: Contours for velocity distribution for Clark Y

Fig. 11: Side view airfoils used in 2D analysis airfoil showing no flow separation

It reveals that the reduction in downforce for ClarkY

airfoil was nearly 60% as compared to NACA 64012
airfoil (Fig 12). Similar reduction was also observed in
coefficient of drag Cd (Fig 13). From the velocity
contours, flow separation was observed for NACA 64012
airfoil (Fig 14-15). Based on all these observations, Clark
Y airfoil was selected as the side view airfoil for model
development.
Downforce (N)
500
400
300
200
100 Fig. 15: Contours for velocity distribution for Clark Y
airfoil showing flow separation in the lower half
0
NACA 64012 NACA 64012 Clark Y with 3D ANALYSIS
without Ground with ground ground
The purpose of 3D [10, 11] analysis was to investigate
Fig. 12: Variation of downforce for different airfoils the flow over the bodyshell and to evaluate the drag and
lift coefficients. A parallel processing facility was set up
involving shared memory type, Windows-based cluster of
eight workstations.

Grid Generation

The CAD model was imported into GAMBIT to construct

a three-dimensional grid system. The disconnected
edges and faces were “stitched” together and some
poorly defined surfaces were replaced by mathematically
 Downloaded from SAE International by Birmingham City Univ, Sunday, August 19, 2018
smooth curves. Since this is a symmetric three-
dimensional external flow problem, only a half of the
bodyshell needs to be simulated. A rectangular
computational domain has been used. In the simulations,
the test model was attached to the floor at the bottom of
the wheel cover with a ground clearance of 1.6 inch. The
domain accommodates the half-car model with a
symmetry plane. The bodyshell surfaces were first
covered with uniformly distributed triangular mesh
elements. The surfaces, combined with those from the
outer block, were stitched together to form a single
volume of the computational domain. Tetrahedral
unstructured grid cells were used in the computational
domain (Fig 16-17).
Fig. 16: Grid Distribution
Fig. 17: Tetrahedral computational grid
Two different grids, denoted as Grid A and Grid B were
used in this study. Grid A employs the size function from
GAMBIT, while Grid B uses the stretching scheme. For
Grid A, the cell size gradually grows from around 0.0069
m near the car surface up to about 0.271 m in the far-
field where the incoming flow is assumed undisturbed by
the presence of the car. The grid density is high around
the car where the flow gradients can be large. There are
83,620 nodes and 389,575 tetrahedral cells in grid A.
The grid adaptation carried out in FLUENT after initial
iterations led to increase in tetrahedral cells to 485,312.
+
The non dimensional distance y for this grid was 0.05
after the final grid adaptation in FLUENT. Grid B was
generated by the simple stretching method in Gambit,
which resulted in a coarser mesh around the car than
Grid A. Grid B has 72,381 nodes and 242,997 tetrahedral
+ Fig. 19: 1/5 Scale Model
cells. The non dimensional distance y for grid B was
0.08. It is found that the size function used in generating
Grid A can effectively wrap around the car body with
much densely distributed grid points than the stretching
scheme used for Grid B. The major part of the results
presented in this paper has been obtained by using grid
A.
Simulation Conditions
The resulting mesh file was then imported into FLUENT.
In FLUENT, the three-dimensional, segregated, implicit
steady solver was used. The viscous model used for
simulation was a standard K-epsilon turbulence model
with standard wall treatment. The other boundary
conditions involving flow velocity at inlet and ground
velocity were same as that in 2D analysis of airfoils. Both
first order and second order upwinding discretization
were used for Grid A and B simultaneously. For Grid A
with second order upwinding, solver took 895 iterations
after four stages of grid adaptations to converge the
solution.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
SCALE MODEL INVESTIGATIONS
As the design evolves, it becomes necessary to analyze
the aerodynamics of the bodyshell to validate the CFD
simulation results. At this stage, a 1/5 scale model of the
bodyshell was made out of fiber reinforced plastic FRP
(Fig 19). The mould for the same was made out of wood
on a 5-axis CNC milling machine.
The tests were carried out at the low speed wind tunnel
facility at Indian Institute of technology, Delhi. Various
fixtures to simulate the motion of ground were made. A
simple cantilever beam mounted with strain gauges was
designed for mounting of the vehicle and measurement
of the lift and drag forces. In order to measure the
pressure distribution over the bodyshell surface, two of
the 36-tube manometer was used. Flow visualization was
done using standard wool tufts. Turbulence visualization
was carried out by observing the drying pattern of a
customized paint spread uniformly over the surface of
the bodyshell.
 Downloaded from SAE International by Birmingham City Univ, Sunday, August 19, 2018

SIMULATION RESULTS 0
Computational Cases -0.01
-0.02
The following four cases of simulations were performed
where the grids as well as upwinding order was changed. -0.03
Among the cases, results for case 3 have been -0.04
discussed below. The total pressure distribution and
velocity vectors illustrate no flow separation at the rear -0.05
end of the bodyshell (Fig 20-21). -0.06 -0.0572
-0.0636 -0.066
Table 1: Computational Cases -0.07
-0.072 -0.075
-0.08
Grid Upwinding Case 1 Case 2 Case 3 Case 4 1/5 Model

Fig. 23: Variation of Cl

Case 1 A First Order
However, the values of drag as well as negative lift
Case 2 B First Order forces as established from the CFD model depicts a
considerable improvement from last year’s Supermileage
Case 3 A Second Order design. Using the second order upwind, the value of drag
coefficient was determined as 0.038. Based upon the
actual frontal area of the bodyshell, this would lead to a
Case 4 B Second Order drag force of 60 N on the bodyshell. Similarly, the
negative lift coefficient value was determined as 0.063
that would lead to a down force of 45 N. Hence at a
speed of 60 Km/h, the apparent increase in weight due
COMPARISON OF RESULTS to aerodynamic downforce is just about 4.5 Kg as
opposite to a value of about 40 kg for a conventional
The values of Cd and Cl from all the four cases of design.
simulation were compared with that obtained from the
wind tunnel tests. As evident from the comparison, the Upon comparison between the CFD analysis results as
values from case 3, having grid A with second order obtained on FLUENT and actual wind tunnel results, the
upwinding are closer to the experimental values (Fig. 22- variation of coefficient of pressure Cp over the length of
23). the bodyshell was found to be in close conformance with
each other, within the limits of experimental error (Fig 24-
25). However for grid B involving coarser cells, the
0.07 0.065 conformance was not observed.
0.06 0.055
0.05 0.0425 0.045
0.0385
0.04
0.03
0.02
0.01
0
Case 1 Case 2 Case 3 Case 4 1/5
Fig. 22: Variation of Cd
 Downloaded from SAE International by Birmingham City Univ, Sunday, August 19, 2018

Fig. 21: Velocity Vectors on bodyshell surface and symmetry plane (m/s)

Fig.20: Total Pressure Distribution (Pa)

 Downloaded from SAE International by Birmingham City Univ, Sunday, August 19, 2018

1.2
C1p Case 3 1/5 Model
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
(b) Wind Tunnel
-0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
-0.4 Fig. 26: Flow Visualization for variation of turbulence
x/l intensity
-0.6
CONCLUSIONS
Fig. 24: Variation of Cp on the upper surface
The final vehicle achieved the aerodynamics objective as
desired to high accuracy. The design methodology using
1.5 integration of standard airfoils to form a bodyshell led to
Case 3 1/5 Model a highly aerodynamic design of the bodyshell that would
significantly improve the performance of the
1 Supermileage team.

Converged numerical solutions for the flow field around

0.5
0 Grid A with second order upwinding discretization were
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
-0.5
-1
Fig. 25: Variation of Cp on lower surface
The flow visualization was carried out by observing the
dryness pattern of a customized paint, to visualize the
distribution of turbulence intensity on the surface of
bodyshell (Fig 26). This is based upon the principle that
there would be a difference in rate of drying for a volatile
paint applied over the bodyshell. This difference is
attributed to difference in the level of skin friction in
turbulent and laminar boundary layers.
the bodyshell have been obtained. The computations
were carried out for two different grids and two numerical
methods of different order of accuracy. The results for
1 observed to be in closest conformance to the
experimental results as compared to the other
combinations of grids and upwinding discretization. The
computed lift coefficients agree well with the measured
data for both the grids A and B. This agreement
suggests that the outer part of the flow around the
bodyshell has been adequately resolved by each and
every one of the grids used and the results are accurate.
The predicted drag coefficient values are less uniform,
although the agreement is reasonably well for two of the
cases calculated. To improve the drag force predictions,
more computational cells are likely to be needed within
the boundary layers that are expected to develop on the
surface of the bodyshell. This measure can easily push
the total number of cells over one million, thereby
requiring more computational effort.

It should also be noted that the effect of motion of wheels

was not taken into account due to the complexity
involved in it. However, it can be predictably said that it
would lead to increase in drag coefficients as obtained
from the experiment. The wind tunnel tests on the full
scale model were not carried out due to non availability
of wind tunnel of suitable cross section to accommodate
the bodyshell.

(a) CFD Simulation

 Downloaded from SAE International by Birmingham City Univ, Sunday, August 19, 2018

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors would like to thank Dr. P.B. Sharma of Delhi

College of Engineering, for his help in overall project and
Dr. S.V. Veeravalli of Indian Institute of Technology,
Delhi, for his generous help in performing experiments
being described in this paper.

REFERENCES

1. Cebeci, T., Bradshaw, P., Momentum Transfer in

Boundary Layers, Hemisphere Publishing
Corporation, New York, 1977.

2. Gresho, P. M., Lee, R. L., Sani, R. L,”Time-

Dependent Solution of the Incompressible Navier-
Stokes Equations in Two and Three Dimensions,”
Recent Advances in Numerical Methods in Fluids.
Pineridge Press, Swansea, U.K., 1980.

3. Hinze, J.O, Turbulence, McGraw-Hill Publishing Co.,

New York, 1975.

4. Bradshaw P, “The understanding and prediction of

turbulent flow,” Royal Aeronautical Society, Vol.6.P.
403, 1972.

5. Cebeci T. and Smith A.M.O., Analysis of Turbulent

Boundary Layers,. Academic Press, New York, 1974

6. Daunenhofer, J. F., Baron, J. R, “Grid Adaptation for

the 2D Euler Equations,” Technical Report AIAA-85-
0484, American Institute of Aeronautics and
Astronautics, 1985.

7. Ferzieger, J. L., Peric, M., Computational Methods

for Fluid Dynamics, Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg,
1996

8. Choudhury, D., “Introduction to the Renormalization

Group Method and Turbulence Modeling,” Fluent Inc.
Technical Memorandum TM-107, 1993.

9. Galperin, B. A., Orszag, S. A., Large Eddy

Simulation of Complex Engineering and Geophysical
Flows, Cambridge University Press, 1993.

10. Issa, R. I, “Solution of Implicitly Discretized Fluid

Flow Equations by Operator Splitting,” J. Comput.
Phys., 62:40-65, 1986.

11. Cooke J, C. and Hall M.G., Boundary layers in

three-dimensions - Progress in Aeronautical
Sciences, Macmillan, Vol.2, P, .221, 1962.