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Design and Analysis of Rear Spoiler to Reduce Drag Coefficient of a Sports Car

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Design And Analysis Of Rear Spoiler To Reduce Drag Coefficient Of A Sports Car

Conference Paper · March 2020

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 Design And Analysis Of Rear Spoiler To Reduce Drag Coefficient Of
A Sports Car
L.Balaji1, P.Deepak prasad2,V.Ashok3,Surendra Kumar Yadav4,Sovan Samanta5.
1,2
UG Students, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Prince Dr.K.Vasudevan college of
engineering and technology, Chennai. Mail-id: [email protected]
3,4
Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Prince Shri
Venkateshwara Padmavathy college of engineering, Chennai.
5
Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Prince Dr.K.Vasudevan
college of engineering and technology, Chennai.

Abstract— In this paper the aerodynamics of sports car has The science of automotive aerodynamics, however, is not
been analyzed. The analysis works is done on the CFD limited to external aerodynamics: it includes elements such as
(Computational Fluid Dynamics) application. The main aim of engine cooling, internal ventilation, air conditioning,
this project is to reduce the coefficient of drag by adding spoiler aerodynamic noise reduction, high-speed stability, dirt
to car models. The modelling of car models has been done using deposition, and more.
solidworks and the CFD is done using the Ansys fluent software. In the following discussion, we’ll focus on external
The boundary conditions were given and results have been aerodynamics. The forces that are moving vehicle must
compared for both the cases of sports car with and without overcome are the resistance of body, the driveline friction,
spoiler. The reduction in the Cd value will improve the
performance of the car.
elevation, changes in vehicle acceleration, and also
aerodynamics. Rear spoilers can be defined as aerodynamic
devices that are usually added to the trailing edge of the roof
Keywords: Spoiler, CFD, Ansys Fluent, Drag Coefficient.
or trunk deck of a vehicle to improve its aerodynamic
performance. Primarily, the goal is to improve the downforce
i.INTRODUCTION
despite the subsequent drag penalty.[2]
arly in the 20th century, motor driven vehicles became a
E reality, and the race to improve the vehicle infrastructures
and vehicle speed had begun. Transportation increased
The vehicle moves along a flat surface at a constant speed and
the external forces are limited to the tire friction and to the
rapidly and when people observed the dangerous for more aerodynamic drag. The aerodynamics of automobile will
speed, new restrictions, speed limits were invented. In most integrate the wheel arcs and lights into the overall shape to
cases peoples safety, fuel economy, and environmental reduce drag. It will be streamlined for example; it does not
concerns were excited. have sharp edges crossing the wind stream above
the windshield and will feature of tail called
Aerodynamics is the study of how gases interact with a fastback or liftback.
moving bodies. Because the gas that we encounter most is air,
aerodynamics is primarily concerned with the forces of drag Automotive aerodynamics is studied using both computers
and lift, which are caused by air passing over and around solid modelling and wind tunnel testing. For the most accurate
bodies. The shape of the vehicle uses about 3% of fuel to results from a wind tunnel test, the tunnel is sometimes
overcome the resistance in urban driving, while it takes 11% equipped with a rolling road. Aerodynamic drag force acts on
of fuel for the highway driving. This considerable high value the vehicle body resisting its forward motion. This force is an
of fuel usage in highway driving attracts several design important force to be considered while designing the external
engineers to enhance the aerodynamics of the vehicle using body of the vehicle, since it covers about 65% of the total
minimal design changes [1]. force acting on the complete body [3]. This is a movable floor
for the working section, which moves at the same speed as the
Engineers apply the principles of aerodynamics to the designs air flow. This prevents a boundary layer from forming on the
of many different things, including buildings, bridges and floor of the working section and affecting the results.
even soccer balls; however, of primary concern is the
aerodynamics of aircraft and automobiles. This is a study
concerns about the airflow around the vehicle body. It turns
out that the science of aerodynamics is directly tied to all of
these elements, and most of us intuitively relate higher speeds
to reduced fuel economy.
 ii.DESIGNING OF 3D CAD MODEL
Initial step of creating the 3D model of sports car is to setup
the layout in SOLIDWORKS as shown in Figure 1. These
layouts were arranged in the different planes as top view, front

Figure 3.

iii.CFD ANALYSIS OF CAR MODELS

The CFD analysis of sports car with and without spoiler
is carried out by Ansys fluent software. Initially Ansys
Figure 1.
workbench is opened then from the toolbox containing the
list of analysis systems FLUID FLOW (FLUENT) is
view, right views. In these view planes the 2D sketch has been double clicked or dragged into the workspace.
drawn and using the 3D tools like extrude, cut-extrude, etc., To do the analysis for both cases (without and with
the car model has to be created. The finished sports car model spoiler) two fluent tab were opened. Then both the tabs
will look like as shown in Figure 2. were named as car without spoiler and car with spoiler.
Now the next step is to save the file in .step or .igs formats.
Since the part models created using the modelling software 3.1 GEOMETRY
Geometry tab is the workspace where the models for
analysis will be imported or created. In geometry, right
click and select import geometry to include the geometry
file. After importing the geometry file, open the design
modeler window by double clicking the geometry. Initially
the window will be empty, generate option in the toolbar is
used to generate the imported sports car model. The units
were set to millimeters. After that, the enclosure is created
from the tool menu. Analysis has been done to simulate
the car model in the wind tunnel. In order to achieve this,
the domain around the body is considered as that of actual
size of the wind tunnel [4]. The domain or enclosure will

Figure 2.

when transferred to another its format has to be changed as

per the common file formats.
Next step is to design the spoiler for the same car model
created. The saved car model file is again opened in a new
tab. Then the 2D sketching of the spoiler is created and the
spoiler extruded at the rear of the car. Also, the support for the
spoiler is attached between car and spoiler. This part file has
been saved in definite format as mentioned above.
The sports car with spoiler will be like as shown in Figure
3. The part files will be imported in Ansys fluent geometry.
Figure 4.
 Assembly Meshing
Method Tetrahedrons
Feature Capture Program Controlled
Tessellation Refinement Program Controlled
Intersection Feature Creation Program Controlled
Advanced
Number of CPUs for Parallel Program Controlled
Part Meshing
Statistics
Nodes 405443
Elements 2221247

When these parameters were included the generate

mesh option is selected. The meshing will be created on the
car body and the domain. After the mesh part is created the
Figure 5. sports car body for both case inside the enclosure will look
like as shown in Figure 6,7.

act as the surrounded environment of the car body. When

the domain is set it will look like as shown in Figure 4,5.
Simultaneously, Geometry for sports car model with
spoiler also imported and its domain is created. When it is
created close the design modeler window.

3.2 MESHING
Meshing is used to subdivide the CAD model into
smaller domains called elements, over which a set of
equations are solved. To do meshing in the car models
meshing window is opened, now the meshing window will
read the geometry and displays. Provide all the basic
parameters as given in the Table 1.

Table 1. Meshing parameters.

Object Name Mesh
State Solved Figure 6.
Defaults
Physics Preference CFD
Solver Preference Fluent
Relevance
Sizing
Use Advanced Size Function On: Curvature
Relevance Centre Fine
Smoothing High
Curvature Normal Angle Default (36.0 °)
Min Size 0.50 mm
Max Size 2048.0 mm
Growth Rate Default (1.20)
Minimum Edge Length 0.208410 mm
Inflation
Use Automatic Inflation None
Inflation Option Smooth Transition
Transition Ratio 0.272
Maximum Layers 5 Figure 7.
Growth Rate 1.2
View Advanced Options No
 When the mesh is created the surfaces of the domain is
given names. These named sections will be used to give the
input parameters on setup window.

3.3 BOUNDARY CONDITION

Boundary conditions are essential component of a
mathematical model. They direct the motion of flow which
leads to unique solution. The boundary conditions consist
of flow inlets and exit boundaries, wall, symmetry, etc., the
inlet velocity value is given as 32 m/s. the outlet pressure
is kept at 0 pascals. Here the side walls were fixed as it will
act as the closed environment.

Figure 9.

Figure 8.

In the above Figure 8. The blue surface at the left side

indicates the inlet with velocity of air at 32m/s. The red
surface at the right side indicates the pressure outlet at 0 Figure 10.
pascals.

3.4 SETUP FOR CALCULATIONS It is clearly seen that there is delayed flow seperation at
The setup window in the Ansys fluent is used to apply the rear end of the car with spoiler attached. It is due to the
all the boundary conditions for the analysis. In general flow separations and the formations of vertices behind the
tab, the pressure-based type, absolute velocity spoiler.
formulations and transient time in the solver is chosen.
Then in the model’s tab, the viscous-k-epsilon model is
used for analysis. Then in materials fluid-air and solid-
aluminum is kept as default. Below that in the boundary
conditions tab the parameters were included.

3.5 RESULTS
Results were calculated in graphs and contour plots.
The solution initialization is kept hybrid initialization as
both fluid and solid were in the analysis. Finally, the
number of iterations for the calculations is assumed for
100 iterations. So, then the calculation will run and the
results will be generated.

Figure 9,10 shows the velocity magnitude contour plot Figure 11.
over the body of the car.
 The above Figures 15,16 explains about the turbulence
intensity produced across the car body.

Figure 12.

The above Figures 11,12 describes about the static pressure Figure 15.
changes between the two car models without and with spoiler.

Figure 16.
Figure 13.
3.6 PLOTTING OF GRAPHS
The Drag and Life coefficient of the car can be generated
from the solutions window. before the iterations have been
solved in the monitors the Cd and Cl were declared at the
directions of the forces. In these car models the coordinate
system is used to calculate the forces. The car moves in the
z-direction so the drag force will act on the negative z-
direction. Then the lift force will act on the positive of y-
direction.

The generated theoretical value of coefficient of drag is

shown in the Table 2.

Table 2.
Without spoiler With spoiler
Forces(N) 160.4527 142.14555
Figure 14.
Drag coefficient 0.013394499 0.011866229
Cd
The above Figures 13,14 describes about the change in the
velocity of the cars in z-direction.
 Figure 17. Figure 19.

Figure 18. Figure 20.

Figures 17,18 Describes the drag coefficient over the car Figures 19,20 defines the plot of lift coefficient values.
without spoiler and with spoiler respectively. It shows that the
Cd value is 0.013394499 on car without spoiler and
0.011866229 on car with spoiler. To determine the reduction
in drag coefficient:

0.013394499−0.011866229
% of reduction = 𝑥 100
0.013394499

=11.4%

Figure 21.
 Figure 22.

Figures 21,22 describes about the residuals produced on the

surface of the car body. The continuity curve flowing through
the graph describes that the flow is converging. If the flow
diverges then it indicates an error on result generation.

iv.CONCLUSION
The drag coefficient and drag forces of the car without
spoiler and with spoiler has been determined. The contour
plots of velocity, pressure, turbulence was also found, the %
of reduction in coefficient of drag has been calculated to be
11.4%. As the drag coefficient decreases it will improve the
fuel efficiency and the stability of the car. So, it is finally
concluded that the spoiler acts more than a decorative part, it
helps to improve the aerodynamic performance of the car.

v.REFERENCES
[1] Rubel Chandra Dasa, Mahmud Riyada,” CFD Analysis of Passenger
Vehicle at Various Angle of Rear End Spoiler”, ,Khulna ,Bangladesh.
Procedia Engineering 194 ( 2017 ) 160 – 165
[2] See-Yuan Cheng, Kwang-Yhee Chin, Shuhaimi Mansor, Abd Basid
Abd Rahman,” Experimental study of yaw angle effect on the
aerodynamic characteristics of a road vehicle fitted with a rear
spoiler” Melaka, Malaysia. JWEIA 184 (2019) 305–312.
[3] Cakir, M. “CFD study on aerodynamic effects of a rear wing/spoiler
on a passenger vehicle”. Mechanical Engineering Masters Theses
Paper 1. Santa Clara University, 2012.
[4] R.H. Barnard, Road Vehicle Aerodynamics, Third edition.
[5] Shyam P. Kodali, Srinivas Bezavada, Numerical Simulation of Air
Flow Over a Passenger Car and the Influence of Rear Spoiler using
CFD, International Journal of Advanced Transport Phenomena
(IJATP), PP 6-13, Vol. 01, No. 01, Jan-Dec 2012.
[6] Inchul Kim, Huailei Chen and Roger C. Shulze, “A Rear Spoiler of a New
Type that Reduces the Aerodynamic Forces on a Mini-Van”, SAE
Techinical Paper Series, 2006-01-1631.

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