A novel approach to the design of rear airfoil pylons on high performance car
Typ
Examensarbete för masterexamen
Program
Automotive engineering (MPAUT), MSc
Publicerad
2020
Författare
Hellsten, Oskar
Pettersson, Oskar
Modellbyggare
Tidskriftstitel
ISSN
Volymtitel
Utgivare
Sammanfattning
The continuous improvement of every aspect of the car is what makes Lamborghini
one of the leading super sports car manufacturers of the world. One of the areas
that is to be investigated is the pylon, which attaches the rear wing to the car body.
There are two main aerodynamic components of the pylon that could help to increase
the performance of the car; the reduction of drag on the pylon and the ability
to create a lateral force that could help while the car is cornering. This thesis aims
to make an initial aerodynamic investigation of the shape of the airfoil that makes
up the pylon to see what benefits that could be gained.
At the start of the thesis, it was concluded that the pylon should be symmetric to
be able to handle oncoming wind from different directions and that the investigated
wind attack angle should span from 0 deg to 15 deg with a focus on the 0 deg to 5
deg region. A base airfoil shape was developed using an optimization method and
CFD to test many different shapes efficiently and find the best one out of those.
With the base shape set, different geometrical features were added to the base to
see if that could improve the airfoil performance. One of the concepts had slots that
went through the base airfoil, another one was a double airfoil that consists of two
smaller sections. The same optimization method was used for the slots respectively
the shape of the two airfoil sections.
The result of the thesis shows potential for the three investigated airfoil designs,
though it has also been concluded that a closed single airfoil is a good design to
begin with. In the focus span of 0 deg to 5 deg some open configurations were
tested. When generating a lateral force the closed airfoil was the best one.
Beskrivning
Ämne/nyckelord
Airfoil , Pylon , Aerodynamics , CFD , Optimization