Automotive Aerodynamics Analysis Using Two Commonly Used Commercial Software

Abstract

Aerodynamics analysis has become a mindset for high performance vehicles. This is because it provides valuable insight on a vehicle motion during different phases. There are vast varieties of software available like ANSYS Workbench, Star CCM+, Autodesk Simulation, SimFlow, FeatFlow, Autodesk Inventor etc. Amongst these softwares, Star CCM+ and ANSYS Workbench are the most widely used. Normally, it is observed that considerable users are confused in choosing the right software for CFD simulation because of a large variety of commercially available softwares. The present study provides comparative results to users of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) with the driven case study. In the present case, authors chose the most commonly used CFD softwares, the ANSYS Workbench Fluent and the Star CCM+. Polyhedral meshing was applied on computer aided model of a car in both of these softwares. It has been found that coefficients of drag and lift achieved by aerodynamic analysis of a car are in a small marginal approximation between both ANSYS Workbench Fluent and Star CCM+ softwares. In the case of Star CCM+, CD was around 0.261 and CL was 0.07; however, in the case of ANSYS Workbench Fluent approximations were found to be 0.271 for CD and 0.05 for CL.