ME-694 SEMINAR PRESENTATION

OPTIMIZATION OF
AUTOMOBILE
PERFORMANCE
SUBMITTED BY
VIVEK TAK

GUIDED BY
PROF. DNYANESH PAWASKAR

153100062 IIT Bombay, Powai

Introduction and classification

An automobile performance is the study of motion of a vehicle.
A motor vehicle is made up of many components.
Each component has its individual contribution to the performance of
vehicle. These can be classified as
1) Engine performance
2) Aerodynamic performance
3) Suspension system
4) Brake efficiency
5) Tire / road interaction
6) Driving style

Role of aerodynamic performance and

importance

Aerodynamic has impact on performance as well as looking of a

vehicle.

Study says that 65 % of total power is consumed in overcoming

the aerodynamic drag when vehicle is moving with high velocity.

Least resistance to air motion.

Vehicles with an aerodynamic shape use less fuel.
Less energy is needed to move them forward.
Better balancing.
Less vibration.
Can attain high speed.

Figure 1: comparison of drag (Images courtesy of Don-Bur Trailers).

Measure of Aerodynamic drag

Aerodynamic drag is calculated as-

vortices

Direction of
air flow

Figure 2 : flow of air through plate (Heisler 2002).

Reduction of aerodynamic drag

Drag type

% of Cd

Caused by

Way of reduction and measures

Forebody
drag

65 %

Overpressure
on the front
face

Reduction of overpressure by
accelerating the flow: rounding up of
upper horizontal and vertical leading
edges, slanting the front face

Base drag

34.9 %

Depression on
the rear end

Increase of pressure: boat-tailing,

tapering the rear part of the body,
rounding up of trailing edges

Side wall,
roof and
underbody
drag

0.1%

Shear stresses
over the walls,
roof and
underbody

Decrease of shear stresses: reduction

of
roughness, decrease of the velocity in
the
underbody gap

Table 1: Components of the drag of a brick shaped bluff body and their reduction (Lajos 2002).

Aerodynamic lift

Atmospheric
pressure +ve

High stagnant
air pressure

Upthrust
(positive lift)

Faster moving
air greater
reduction in
pressure

Slower moving
air slight
reduction in
pressure

Direction
of motion

Drag
resistance

Figure 3: Aerodynamic lift (Heisler 2002)

Low
pressure
wake -ve

Effect of aerodynamic attachment

Figure 5: effect of spoilers on the drag (Dunlavey, 2014)

Current trend in aerodynamic profiling

Mathematical modeling (partial differential

equations).

Numerical methods (discretization and solution

techniques).

Software tools (solvers, pre- and post processing

utilities).

Earlier tools were-

Wind tunnel approach

Road test

Numerical method optimization process

Figure 6: Black Box flow char of optimization procedure (Lombardi & Maganzi 2009)

Case study : based on numerical method

Figure 7: Grid volume merging procedure (Lombardi & Maganzi 2009)

Results
Low drag

-1.52

0.30

High load

0.26

1.94

Figure 8: Results obtained by numerical method (Muyl et al. 2004)

Hybrid method of optimization

GA method is time consuming.

Hybrid method uses combination of GA and

deterministic model.

Steps

Random population is improved by GA

Gradient method is used and solution is again

reinjected to new population

GA starts again.

Aerodynamic shape optimization using

hybrid method

Figure 9: 3D car shape where the backlight angle , boat tail angle and ramp angle
are adjustable (Muyl et al. 2004).

Results

Drag coefficient

Evolution of Drag coefficient

Computing time ( in hours )

Figure 10: Convergence result for 3D shape optimization with 3 parameters ( Muyl et al. 2004 ).

Results obtained by hybrid method

Figure 11 : 3D vehicle like body wake for (,,) = (14.5,7.6,14.3) ( Muyl et al. 2004 ).

Results obtained by hybrid method

Figure 12 : 3D vehicle like body wake for (,,) = (23.1,13.6,23.3) ( Muyl et al. 2004 ).

In case of (,,) equal to (23.1,13.6,23.3) the drag is weaker by

0.023.

Conclusion

Aerodynamic profiling is step by step methodology aiming to find

best possible design of vehicle. Optimization of vehicle
aerodynamics bodies results in

Considerable reduction of fuel consumption

Improvement of comfort characteristics and
More favorable driving characteristics of ground vehicles specially
fast moving vehicles.
CFD and FEM are the tools now days to predict best aerodynamic
profile according to the requirements by simulation.

Future scope

Hybrid method is faster then GA technique but there are still

possibility of reducing the computational efforts.
Reducing aerodynamic drag can affect the performance of other
components so multi degree optimization is needed to get the best
possible result.

References
Dunlavey, M. (2014). Benefits of rear spoiler in cars. Retrieved from
http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/140969/benefits-of-rearspoiler-in-cars#comment290610_140969
Heisler, H., 2002. Advanced vehicle technology. Elsevier.
Lajos, T., 2002. Basics of vehicle aerodynamics. Budapest University of
Technology and Economics Department of Fluid Mechanics.
Lombardi, G. & Maganzi, M., 2009. Use of the CFD for the
Aerodynamic Optimization of the Car Shape: Problems and Application.
In 4th EURopean Automotive Simulation Conference. Munich, Germany.
Muyl, F., Dumas, L. & Herbert, V., 2004. Hybrid method for
aerodynamic shape optimization in automotive industry. Computers &
Fluids, 33(5-6), pp.849858.