Sprinting a Mygale M12 Ecoboost

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andylaurence
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Re: Sprinting a Mygale M12 Ecoboost

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I spent today scanning the car. A bit more work to do before I have a complete model, but it's looking good...

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machin
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Joined: 25 Nov 2008, 14:45

Re: Sprinting a Mygale M12 Ecoboost

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What system did you use in the end?

Presumably the plan is to run it in CFD?
COMPETITION CAR ENGINEERING -Home of VIRTUAL STOPWATCH


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andylaurence
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Re: Sprinting a Mygale M12 Ecoboost

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Yep, Kinect with KScan3D. It's a little bumpy, but a start. When I get on my PC, I'll post some pictures. @andylaurence on Twitter has a few photos. Now seeking people with time and skills to help me develop a new floor through CFD...

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andylaurence
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Re: Sprinting a Mygale M12 Ecoboost

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The Mygale Ecoboost is a spec racer for Formula Ford. It's not designed to be quick, but to induct kids into racing. There's minimal downforce, so as we're running the car in an open category, we need to investigate getting more downforce. Rather than just throw some wings at it and hope for the best, we're going to try and be a little educated about the modifications we make. We're going to try some CFD, because, well, why not eh?

The first step in CFD is that you need a model. We tried asking Mygale, but they didn't want to help as the car was a joint project with Ford. We looked for other options. We could ask a company like TotalSim to help us out and scan the car, but our budget doesn't stretch to that - they want a season's budget to send us back a model. They're not expensive, we're just cheap. The other option was to try some of the cheap scanning hardware available and clean up the mess that results.

We've invested in £35 of Kinect hardware and downloaded KScan3D to try and scan the car. We towed the car to Ramp It Up and rented a set of ramps.

Image

With the computer set up, it was time to start scanning the car and after just over 100 scans stitched together, we had something that resembles a model.

Image

We then hoisted the car up on the two post lift and carried out the same process on the other side. The two sides can then be stitched together and holes patched up. Unfortunately, the Kinect isn't really a great 3D scanner, so the model is rough. This means hours of effort smoothing out the model. It also means that the wings are not the right profile, so we'll be modelling them separately from scratch once the rest of the body is complete.

If you have skills in this area (or want to acquire them) and the time to help out, please get in touch as this isn't a short process!

Once the model is done, we'll get a baseline completed using OpenFOAM to ascertain the aero map as it stands. The first step for improvement is to build a new floor to replace the completely flat unit currently in the car. Alongside this, will be work on managing the flow around the front wheels to enable the floor to work properly. Key to all of these modifications will be ensuring the downforce is as consistent as possible over a wide operating window as the drivers, erm, require a stable platform...

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machin
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Joined: 25 Nov 2008, 14:45

Re: Sprinting a Mygale M12 Ecoboost

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Cool. We did something similar with a 65 metre 1930's motoryacht hull. Took a lot of work to get it sorted (I didn't do it, and glad I didn't have to!). Personally I think I would create a new model parametrically and then simply overlay the two and manipulate the new one to get them similar: so the scan works as a "guide". I think it would be quicker, but still not quick... At least you end up with a nice "clean" model that is easy to manipulate...
COMPETITION CAR ENGINEERING -Home of VIRTUAL STOPWATCH

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CAEdevice
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Joined: 09 Jan 2014, 15:33
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Re: Sprinting a Mygale M12 Ecoboost

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machin wrote:Cool. We did something similar with a 65 metre 1930's motoryacht hull. Took a lot of work to get it sorted (I didn't do it, and glad I didn't have to!). Personally I think I would create a new model parametrically and then simply overlay the two and manipulate the new one to get them similar: so the scan works as a "guide". I think it would be quicker, but still not quick... At least you end up with a nice "clean" model that is easy to manipulate...
Yes, I confirm the suggestion of machin. I would like to help you with CAD modeling (I also have some CFD skills with FlowSimulation and I'm learning OpenFOAM). I do not have much free time, it depends on what are is timeline target.

Pieoter
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Joined: 15 Dec 2010, 05:24

Re: Sprinting a Mygale M12 Ecoboost

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Couldn't you take a wide range of photos of the car, then use those photos as a background to manually create a mesh?

http://www.tutorialboneyard.com/3ds-max ... nd-images/

I used to do this when modelling in 3dsMax.

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andylaurence
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Re: Sprinting a Mygale M12 Ecoboost

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Thanks all - good point, Tim. I'm not a skilled modeller, so any help appreciated. With our budget, we can't be picky about timescales, but I'd like to be in a position to start mould manufacture for a new floor in the next couple of months.

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CAEdevice
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Re: Sprinting a Mygale M12 Ecoboost

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That is quite a short time! I would be glad to help: starting from the scanned data and a good number of pictures, I could provide a simplified model for CFD analysis with a parametric CAD, SolidWorks or Creo, and test some ideas with CFD (ex. adding a simple diffuser with a very low angle) for free (with the permission of talking about it on my website), but I can't guarantee any data, it depends of my customer requests in the meanwhile.

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andylaurence
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Re: Sprinting a Mygale M12 Ecoboost

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I work quickly...

A model is the first step. I'd you could help with that, no matter how much or how little, that'd be great. If half a dozen people want to help, we can split the car into sections with each person creating a separate part. PM me an email address and I'll send you the scanned data.


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RicME85
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Joined: 09 Feb 2012, 13:11
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Re: Sprinting a Mygale M12 Ecoboost

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Downloaded it... Will have to buy more RAM to open that in Sketchup..the file size is huge :D


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CAEdevice
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Re: Sprinting a Mygale M12 Ecoboost

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Just to have an idea of the STL, here is a lighter version:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/522 ... LowRes.stl

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