| Abstract [eng] |
The first races in which motorised vehicles were utilised started in the late 19th Century. Since more and more different kinds of races came to popularity, vehicle engineers started developing special vehicles which were designed specifically for racing. Such vehicles had all sorts of different technologies dedicated for improving lots of different technical characteristics. All of the vehicles were based on a specific race type and designed to perform best in those exact conditions. But one of the characteristics was especially studied and constantly improved on every single one of the vehicles. That characteristic is – aerodynamics. Aerodynamics is a study based on interaction between air molecules and the surface of solid bodies. While researching the sports cars, few of the main characteristics that are studied are: aerodynamic drag, aerodynamic downforce and their corresponding coefficients which are calculated based on those forces. All of those characteristics depend on many factors such as vehicle body shape, different kinds of additional aerodynamic components and their configurations as well as the impact of the environment. In this study, one of the aerodynamic components used in almost all sports vehicles – rear spoiler, was studied. The purpose of the rear spoiler is to generate downforce which puts pressure on the rear wheels to help with traction and handling. While studying the impact of a rear spoiler on the aerodynamics of a vehicle, the angle of attack as well as the geometry of one of the main elements was changed. Also, the impact of different environmental characteristics, such as temperature, altitude and humidity, was studied. All of the studies were performed using the Flow Simulation add-in on Solidworks 2020 software. Using the software, a virtual wind tunnel was constructed, that was used for all of the studies which were performed with the speeds ranging from 5 m/s to 50 m/s. After the studies it was concluded that the starting rear spoiler had best results with the angle of attack at 31 degrees. After developing and studying 2 additional rear spoilers it was concluded that the starting spoiler had the best results: around 2 % lower drag and around 8 % higher downforce while comparing all of the rear spoilers together. While studying the environmental impact it was concluded that rising the temperature from -20 ℃ to +20 ℃, the drag and downforce coefficients increase by around 16 %, rising the altitude from 0 m to 2250 m the coefficients decrease by around 24 % and rising the humidity from 0 % to 100 %, the coefficients decrease by around 1 %. |
