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In this 4th & final video in the series AIRBUS talks, we continue our discussion on the aerodynamics of the America's Cup and we get insights into their involvement for the 36th edition, where they will support team American Magic.


Simulations instead of physical testing
Due to technical restrictions, it is forbidden to perform wind tunnel or water channel tests. So aerodynamic analysis & optimization is performed through simulations. This can be very costly when the geometry is complex or difficult to mesh, and very powerful high performance computers are required to perform the simulations. And then, many different set points need to be analyzed.


Velocity Performance Prediction
The output of such simulations was used in the Velocity Performance Prediction program: there they can simulate the performance of the boat using the aerodynamic coefficients. That is why they need as many details on the performance of the boat as possible. This approach is very comparable to laptime simulation programs used in Formula One and other racing series.


Interaction between the sails and the boat
One of the problems they found was the detached flow in the interaction between the main sail and the platform of the boat. This detached flow needed to be reduced. The platform acts like a wing tip for the bottom of the main sail, which in theory reduces the wing tip vortex. However, due to the complex flow over the platform and the sail, the wing tip is not so strong and detached flow at the root is a larger problem.


American Magic
Team New Zealand won the previous edition of the America's Cup (35th edition) and it's the winning team that get's to choose the design of the boat for the next edition. They decided to continue with the foils, but changed from a catamaran to monocoque layout of the boat. This is fascinating because this boat design could make the boats pass the magical 50 knots speed barrier. At those speeds, cavitation effects on the foils under water start playing a role.


Strict protocol
Teams are not allowed to inject a gas lighter than air inside the boat to lift the boat from the water. All the crew should also be human (no robots yet!)

AIRBUS talks part 4 of 4 - America's Cup Aerodynamics - PART 2

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In this third video in our series AIRBUS talks, we take a look at the aerodynamics of the America’s Cup boats.

History of the America’s Cup
The America’s Cup is the oldest sports competition in the world. The original race was between British & American ships, sailing around the Isle of Wight. The technology level is on par with Formula 1 and budgets are equally high.
In the last 3 America’s Cup, the contenders have used the foils to carry & lift the boat out of the water. Once the boat is lifted from the sea, it wins a lot of speed and aerodynamics become more important. Not just for the sails, but also for the entire platform:
- Detached flow from the crew
- Flow over cavities
AIRBUS can inject their expertise in these domains.

New challenges
With the hull coming out of the water, it becomes a relevant & active aerodynamic part. The biggest challenges AIRBUS had been to reduce the drag of the trampoline (which the crew uses to cross sides). Another challenge was to compare the drag of different hull shapes and crew positions.
Also, the interaction between components is very relevant. The front & rear beam connecting the left & right hull play a large role for the aerodynamics. They even apply vortex generators to reduce the drag!

Stay tuned for the fourth and last video, where we'll discuss the upcoming 36th edition of the America’s Cup!

AIRBUS talks part 3 of 4  - America's Cup Aerodynamics

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Air Race E is like nascar racing in the sky:
Electric planes racing at speeds of 300MPH around an oval track just 10 meters above the ground!

In this interview with Izan of Air Race E, we discuss how electric plane design is changing air racing and aviation as a whole:

Concept
Air Race E is a new class of motorsport based on electric aircraft. The format is similar to Nascar, with 8 airplanes racing in an oval circuit 10 meters above the ground. High-speed intense motorsport.

Airplane Design
- The front end of the aircraft
The electric powertrain is a lot more compact and this allows for a more compact nose cone. Also, no air intakes are present, making it more streamlined.
- Propeller layout
Regulations will be opened up from single-axis propellers to distributed electric propulsion. This is a hot topic in the urban mobility movement with companies like Joby Aviation, Uber Air, Lilium, CityAIRBUS and many others.
Distributed power along the wing becomes possible. Or putting the rotors at the wingtips to counteract the wingtip vortices & increase efficiency.
- Battery distribution
These can be located in the wing, tail, nose, ... the distributed weight allows for new architectures as well.
- Part count
There is a large reduction in part count & operational cost per flight hour compared to traditional fossil fuel

Nascar in the Sky - Interview with Air Race E

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In this second video in our series 'AIRBUS talks' we dive into the different methods that are used to design a modern airplane:
- CFD (computational fluid dynamics): aerodynamic simulations running on high-performance computers
- Wind tunnel testing: using scaled models inside a wind tunnel to analyze multiple set points
- Flight testing: flying the real airplane to map its behaviour, performing reject take-off scenario's, stall angle detection, ...

AIRBUS gives us insights into the benefits of these methods:
- CFD: it's possible to simulate the real Reynolds number - the real speed & size of the airplane
- Wind tunnel testing: you can analyze multiple setpoints over a single campaign
- Flight testing: the one & only end evaluation

Most of the efforts are focused on cruise flight, as this represents 90% of the operating regime of the plane.

We also zoom in on the challenges of keeping the Reynolds number the same. AIRBUS even goes as far as working with different gases at low temperature & pressure to get the same Reynolds number as the real aircraft! They've performed tests at DNW (German-Dutch Wind tunnels), ETW (European Transonic Wind Tunnel), DLR (Deutsche Luft & Raumfahrt) and more.

Coming up next:
How AIRBUS was and is involved in the America's Cup!


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#AirShaper #AircraftDesignTools #AirbusAerodynamics

AIRBUS Talks - Aircraft Design Tools

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'AIRBUS TALKS' is a series of 4 videos with Julián Maldonado: he explains the ins & outs of aviation design and the America's Cup boats they help design.

Part 1: Aviation Challenges

In this first video, Julian explains the modern challenges in aviation and how they plan to tackle these.

About Julian Maldonado:
- Has been working at AIRBUS for 15 years
- 10 years on aerodynamics: CFD, wind tunnel testing, flight testing
- 2 years on flight dynamics: A320neo, flight test identification
- 3 years on aircraft performance: project manager

Typical general aviation challenges - related to the aerodynamics:
- Safety first
- Reduce emissions: CO2, NOx, Noise

Aerodynamic focus points:
- Laminar flow: reducing turbulence & drag
- Improving the lift/drag ratio: improve performance & optimize the trajectory

Improving the overall drag of the airplane:
- Winglets: 2% drag reduction. Applied to every flight, this has a huge impact.
- Laminar flow: the BLADE project focuses on improving laminarity on the wings to reduce the drag.

Coming up next:
Simulation techniques, wind tunnel testing & flight testing


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AIRBUS Talks - Part 1/4 - Aviation Challenges

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In this video, we’re analyzing how aerodynamics impact the performance of rally cars.

Surprisingly enough, in many ways the aerodynamics of rally cars are far more complex than in Formula One, where the cars enjoy some of the world’s smoothest and grippiest bits of tarmac. That’s quite a big contrast to rally cars, where driving in a straight line without wheel spin, drifting or jumping is a rare occasion.
So, where do you start if you want to optimize the aerodynamic performance? The hard reality is that you’ll have to look at multiple scenario's and strike a delicate balance between aerodynamic performance in each of those.

Let's take this 2016 Skoda Rally car in normal setup (regular ride height) and straight-line driving at 40 m/s as the reference. As shown by these red clouds, which indicate where a drag-increasing wake is created, this clearly isn’t the most streamlined car out there:

The rooftop air intake disturbs the air to such an extent that in its wake the center of the rear wing loses pressure and performance. And those wheel arches cause a lot of separation of the airflow at the sides of the car.

But enough on theoretical straight-line driving – it almost never happens, it’s time to start jumping & drifting!

If we increase the car's ride height by 15cm, which is not uncommon just before or during a jump, then the drag on the car increases by 16% and the downforce is cut in half! As you can imagine, losing downforce and grip just before take-off can be quite tricky for the launch. And once you’re flying, you’re slowing down quite a lot because of the drag!

Massive changes in ride height like this are one of the main reasons it’s difficult to boost rally car performance by using underfloor aerodynamics, diffusers and so on: the downforce they generate is extremely sensitive to changes in ride height. And perhaps even more important, that change of downforce can be more pronounced at the front or the rear, changing the aerodynamic balance and thus the handling & stability of the car.

Next, let's look at drifting. Obviously, there's enough debate going on already as to whether you'll be faster or not when drifting. When it comes to aerodynamics, the drag on this car increased by 43% at a moderate drift angle of 15°! That would slow you down quite a lot. But there's good news as well:

The entire car starts acting like a giant wind shield, with the wind hitting the outer side flank. This generates around 100kg of lateral force pushing the car back into the corner.

And, interestingly, the wake of the rooftop air intake is no longer affecting the rear wing, which is now happily creating downforce, so it seems that this car really comes together in the corners.



Note: the 3D model of the rally car used in this video was a public one from hum3D.com and is not an official model from Skoda: it serves mainly to highlight general rally car challenges and not to make official claims to the performance of this car in question.


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Rally Car Aerodynamics - Side Slipping through the Air

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In this video, we’ll cover the advanced aerodynamic features of the upcoming Lotus Evija electric hypercar.

From a distance, the Lotus looks relatively normal, at least for a hypercar. But the closer you get, the more hidden channels you discover. At the front, underneath the hood, the air is guided between the wheels and the center of the car, to exit a bit further downstream at the sides of the car. The air that has chosen to go on top of the hood, tumbles down to the flanks to enter the air intakes on the side of the car to exit at the back.

We didn’t yet obtain a 3D model of the Evija, but we have something that comes quite close. The Aquilo is a concept car I designed 10 years ago, featuring roughly the same channels. Let’s have a look at how they help to improve aerodynamic performance.

In this concept, the air enters the car in the middle and then splits left & right to exit on the sides. This helps to reduce the virtual frontal area of the car, something Lotus refers to as aerodynamic porosity. This same porosity can be seen at the back, where large channels take the air in on the sides and spit it back out at the rear. This air helps to fill the low-pressure bubble at the back of the car, greatly reducing the wake it leaves behind, as shown by these red pressure clouds. This helps a great deal to reduce the drag of the car and thus increases range and top speed.

Beyond reducing drag, the channels in the Aquilo are meant to split the air left & right in an asymmetric way. This generates lateral forces to help the car corner faster. The concept was patented and later on referenced to in patents of Ferrari and Toyota. So perhaps the Lotus Evija hasn’t revealed it’s full potential yet, let’s see what the future brings!


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Hypercar Aerodynamics - 2000hp Lotus Evija

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In this video, we’ll discuss the motorbike aerodynamics with together with Joseph Katz, author of the famous book “race car aerodynamics”, professor at the San Diego State University and passionate motorbike rider.
Before we move on to the interview, let’s summarize some basic aspects of motorbike aerodynamics and how they differ from cars:

First of all, the drag: the frontal area, which is the area when looking at an object from the front, is much smaller for a motorbike. But to get the total drag on an object, you need to multiply this frontal area by the drag coefficient, which is much, much larger for a motorbike, offsetting the benefit of the smaller frontal area: it is filled with exposed bits of geometry like the wheels, brakes, and so on, and the surface the air needs to follow is hardly a smooth one: it’s full of abrupt changes like the end of the wind shield causing the flow to detach. And then there’s the rider, a massive disturbance to the air. So, the drag coefficient of a motorbike is easily double or more than that of a modern-day car.
Second of all, the centre of pressure, which is the point where the total sum of the pressure is acting, is quite high above the ground. With respect to the contact point of the rear wheel on the ground, this tends to push the motorbike backwards, lowering contact pressure on the front wheel, which reduces steering control. As the aerodynamic drag force increases with the square of velocity, this can become problematic at high speeds. So, trying to get the center of pressure as low as possible is crucial for motorbikes. A low rider position is a good start. Another way to balance things is to create down force on the front wheel to counteract this back-flipping moment on the bike.

In the interview, we cover the following topics:
- Effects of leaning on aerodynamics
- Engine performance
- AMA superbikes
- Rider position
- Rear tire wear
- Active aerodynamics
- Wind tunnel testing
- Centre of pressure
- Ducati wings
- Lateral forces
- Helmet vibration
- Better engine performance via RAM air


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Motorbike Aerodynamics - 10 mph faster with Joseph Katz

Open wheels, exposed components and a constantly moving rider makes optimising motorcycle aerodynamics a huge challenge. But there are many techniques engineers use to refine the designs of motorbikes, helmets and suits and the rider has an important role to play too.

How to improve Motorcycle aerodynamics

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In this video we’ll explain how you can build aero maps for your own race car.

What are aero maps?
So, what exactly is an aero map, and what on earth do maps have to do with race cars?
Well, in general terms, a map is a tool to visualize or store the relationship between different variables. Like the altitude of a terrain in function of longitude and latitude. Or, in case of a race car, the aerodynamic drag, lift and balance in function of the setup of the car, like the ride height at the front and the rear, the angle of a wing, and so on. So in general, aero mapping can be described as the “mapping” of the relationship between geometric parameters of the car on one hand, and the effect on aerodynamic properties on the other hand.

What do you use them for?
So why do you need an aero map? When the time has come to race, every second matters: not only for lap times, but also for setting up the car prior to and during the race. Aerodynamics are crucial for the dynamic behavior & performance of the car. For example, the aero balance describes how the down force is distributed between the front and rear axle. Shifting this balance can help mitigate oversteer for example. Another aspect is the cornering performance: when the circuit is filled with high-speed corners, you need more down force. But on circuits with long straights, the drag penalty associated with high-down force settings will slow you down over the course of a lap. Having a clearly mapped relationship available between the setup parameters of the car and the aerodynamics is essential to setup or modify the car on race day – when there is no room for trial & error.

Where can you get these aero maps?
“Ok, you have me convinced, I need aero maps. Where do I buy one?” Unfortunately, it’s not that easy, for a number of reasons:
a. You could ask the manufacturer, but quite often the aero maps are not shared, or the ones that are shared are not always accurate or useful.
b. You could also consider building your own aero maps in a wind tunnel: it can result in highly accurate maps, but requires large budgets as a proper tunnel with moving floor costs thousands of euros per hour, not even taking the cost of preparation & data processing into account.
An interesting budget-friendly way of building aero maps is to run CFD, or computational fluid dynamics simulations on the different setups of your car. Let’s have a look at how this can be done.


Building an aero map through simulations
First of all, you’ll need a 3D model. Again, it’ll be tough to get it from the manufacturer, but luckily, there’s plenty of professional modelers out there that provide high-quality 3D models of race cars for just a few hundred euros. And with AirShaper able to run simulations directly on such models, which can contain many gaps and holes that normally crash simulation, you can use these models as they are, or have us modify them to match your car in specific.
To illustrate the process of aero mapping we’ll be using this public 3D model of the 2016 Audi R8 LMS. We changed the ride height of this car by 20mm in two steps and then mapped two important aerodynamic properties.
First, the drag and down force. As you can see, increasing the ride height of the car doesn’t impact the aerodynamic drag much but it significantly reduces the down force. This is because you reduce the speed up of the air underneath the car, helped by the splitter at the front and the diffuser at the back. So lowering the car would actually be a better idea in terms of aerodynamics, giving you extra down force at hardly any drag penalty, so why didn’t we?
Well, in most race classes there is a lower limit to the ride height of the car, so you wouldn’t be allowed. And, if you lower the car too much, you can actually block or choke the flow underneath the car, losing that precious down force.
But down force is more complicated than just a single number. As mentioned before, the aero balance describes the distribution of down force between the front and rear axle. Too much on the front will make the front wheels grip nicely but allows the back to lose grip easily, resulting in oversteer. So, it’s important to tweak the balance properly and amongst many things, align it with the weight distribution of the car itself. In this example, we can see that increasing the ride height of the car, also shifts the aerodynamic balance backwards. To counter this, you may need to play with the front splitter or the angle of attack of the rear wing, or the rake of the car, if allowed by regulations.


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Race car aerodynamics #3 - Aero mapping

Aero maps visualise the relationship between downforce, drag and ride height. Engineers use aero maps to tune the set-up of a race car to achieve maximum downforce and optimum aero balance in the corners where the most lap time can be found.

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AIRBUS talks part 4 of 4 - America's Cup Aerodynamics - PART 2

AIRBUS talks part 3 of 4 - America's Cup Aerodynamics