F1technical.net

n smikle wrote:We NEED TO HAVE an F1 CAR CFD test competition! Get all the User made cars together and test them using the same boundary conditions. All these cars have to be good for something!!

Good things come to those who wait:-

Khamsin Virtual Racecar Challenge

Its been way too long in coming, but finally someone (Hibou Scientific Software) has stepped forward to do the CFD testing of cars built by the likes of you guys, so that a Virtual F1 championship could be created!

This idea was proposed some time ago, but there was always the question of who would do the CFD side, and how all the models would be made comparable to eachother; things like radiator cross-sectional area, engine sizes, gearboxes etc... well, the guys at Khamsin have addressed that issue by supplying some model parts and mandating cross-sectional areas of other parts...

The cars need to be submitted in a Google Sketch-up format. They will be checked to make sure they comply with the rules, and then they'll be cfd tested to determine the drag and downforce coefficients and centre of pressure position. The aim of the challenge is to provide the sort of transparency that we can only wish F1 would have; all cars accepted for the championship will have their own page on which images will be shown and the results of the cfd testing will be presented for all to see, i.e. no secrets here -if you make a change to your model you'll see how that affects its aero characteristics (for better or worse), so its going to be a great F1/racecar aero design resource even if you're not taking part.

I can't hide I've been very skeptical of similar championships in the past, but when I heard of these guys' plans, and they asked me to help out, I jumped at the chance; I've supplied the championship organisers with a special version of my Virtual Stopwatch program which allows them to input the aero data to generate an aeromap for each car. As this is an aero design competition all other attributes of the car are kept constant. The program then outputs an optimum lap time based on the inputs; so you'll see whether you've hit the sweet-spot with regards to offsetting downforce to drag for each circuit.

So, what should you do first? Have a read of the rules is a good start....

Rules

The championship kicks off properly in 2013, but a test event is being held in November so that any issues can be resolved and things improved where necessary.

Test Race

If that sounds like something you'd like to get involved with go to the "Register my team" page on the website.

You can also follow the challenge on twitter:- @KVRChallenge

Personally I can't wait to see what designs you guys come up with, so get building!

I think I'm gonna give it a go. I have never tried such competition before and never had time to make a F1 car in CAD format, but I hope I can have some time for this now. It will depend on the free time I have at my new school. Sounds interesting anyway !

My skill in aero is poor so I hope I can improve myself and learn more about how things work by "doing" and looking at others realizations !

Signed up just now.
Nick had given me the heads up on this the other week. His latest car is the showcar.

me too

astracrazy wrote:me too

I gave a selection of people I thought might be interested heads up before a general thread was created just so those people can have an idea of it.

Looks interesting! Waiting for updates..

A question for sketchup users: can i import a 3d model from Blender to Sketchup (free edition) and then save to the file format required from the challenge? Or will i need Sketchup Pro?

stez90 wrote:Looks interesting! Waiting for updates..

A question for sketchup users: can i import a 3d model from Blender to Sketchup (free edition) and then save to the file format required from the challenge? Or will i need Sketchup Pro?

Take a look at this ... May be helpful : http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtop ... 71&t=39027

i was speaking to nick last night about the exhausts and will it make a difference i.e blowing the diffuser etc. and it doesn't look like at the moment it will. Might it be worth saying ok, the car is based on the 2013 regs but your exhausts have to exit here (insert reg)

Just so people don't think it makes a difference and design there car like red bull or macca thinking they will gain time from there exhaust design if they wont. Just an idea to save potential arguments in the future, if everyone has to have the same design it closes that up

anyone here brought Khamsin yet?

Erm, no, I will be using the free trial

As to your point on the exhaust, there is a bit on the website that states you can add things like F-Ducts but it wont be factored in as its static geometry aero that is measured so Im sure that would fall into the same thing.

We cannot simulate F-ducts or fluidic switches during a race, for the following reasons: We calculate the drag and downforce coefficients using Computational Fluid Dynamics for a static geometry and create a laptime from these figures using Virtual Stopwatch. We cannot create a laptime from variable drag and downforce figures.

I'm just thinking of ideas to stop the potential moan if someone spends a lot of time on something that isn't relevant
"how did he beat me when my exhausts [blah blah blah]"
Either way it doesn't matter

I've used my 30 day free trial up , I tried this a few months ago, now i need it i can't use it! lol

Could always email Julien and see if you can get another 30 days for the competition

Did they define the testing conditions? For example, velocity, yaw angle and other boundary condition; they will be useful for home testing while the car is "work in progress"..

stez90 wrote:Did they define the testing conditions? For example, velocity, yaw angle and other boundary condition; they will be useful for home testing while the car is "work in progress"..

I can't say what the cfd conditions are (as I don't know!), but I can say that the version of Virtual Stopwatch that I provided to the championship allows for three sets of aero coefficients to be added for each car; two straight ahead (I have suggested these are taken at a mid, say 100mph, and a higher speed, 180mph ish), and a third set at 3 degrees of yaw (I suggest at a mid-speed). The program then interpolates between these points for other speeds and yaw angles.

that's a good point regarding the testing conditions.

So how does it work with regard to different tracks then?

I've got a question regarding the parts that can be built. As I understand, there is no limit on the material thickness. For example someone could design parts with 1mm thickness which would be impossible in reality but will give probably some advantage on CFD testing, isn't it ?

Or is there an agreement that it is for example impossible to have parts under 3mm thickness ? How this issue is managed ?

I really hope I can have some time for this project, it looks really interesting.