NASCAR teams produce 3 x more simulations and almost eliminate expensive wind tunnel testing
NASCAR racing teams are leveraging automated simulation workflow’s, which have been created by D2H and Ansys with the hope of improving high-performance stock cars that are engineered with speed, efficiency, and affordability. The collaboration with D2H and Ansys have helped achieve significant streamlining in the development cycle, especially for improving the aerodynamics of race cars by enabling teams to almost eliminate the need of wind tunnel testing.
Race teams have little time during a season, and have only one week to prepare between races, NASCAR racing teams traditionally spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for rigorous and time-consuming wind tunnel testing to improve aerodynamics. Ansys Fluent software helps to provide provides teams with tremendous production efficiency along with cost savings, through delivering leading-edge aerodynamic models which can enhance stock car performance across every track scenario.
D2H and Ansys have created an automated Fluent workflow that almost eliminates wind tunnel testing. Accelerating the teams’ simulation process with an emphasis to create more aerodynamic race cars, the workflow cuts down engineering workloads and integrates HPC to optimize designs much faster, enabling teams to produce 3x more designs without extra development time and resolve issues in hours instead of days.
“This cutting-edge workflow makes an incredible impact on our mutual customers’ aerodynamic designs, with racing teams realizing heightened modelling fidelity and markedly faster run times,” said Noah McKay, engineering director at D2H. “Using this workflow, NASCAR teams overcome design issues sooner and maximize production efficiency within a tight developmental window, resulting in major performance advantages, which promises more track championships.”
“80% of the modeling process involves cleaning up ‘dirty’ geometry, in which an engineer must spend countless hours removing the extraneous components that aren’t needed to run a simulation,” said Jason Pfeiffer, vice president at Rand Simulation, D2H’s dedicated Ansys channel partner. “This automated workflow delivers a push-button solution that compresses the development process, helping engineers create designs faster to address challenging aerodynamic issues.”
In a race season, track surfaces, weather conditions and competition rules can change quickly and unpredictably, leading to several complicated design issues which need to be address. By nearly eliminating the need for wind tunnel testing from the developmental process, teams can be more focused and precise.
“Our mutual NASCAR racing team customers require substantial speed of design and peak fidelity, which presents major obstacles for optimizing the design of high-performance stock cars,” said Shane Emswiler, senior vice president at Ansys. “By collaborating directly with D2H, our shared resources enable racing teams to pivot from costly and laborious wind tunnel testing to a customized, automated end-to-end workflow — delivering highly advanced race cars that can conquer the competition.”
