Application of Bionics of Tiger Beetle to Aerodynamic Optimization of MIRA Fastback Model

Abstract

Aerodynamic drag plays a primary role in vehicle’s fuel consumption. Drag reduction has been a more and more important part in automotive body design. Bionics has been successfully applied to drag reduction optimizations in automotive body design. This research aimed at reducing drag coefficient of MIRA fastback car model by applying principles of bionics. Tiger beetle was sliced and photos of the slices were taken to establish model in SolidWorks software. And its aerodynamics of moving status was studied. Its external flow field was simulated and analyzed. Aerodynamic features on tiger beetle was extracted and applied to the optimization of MIRA fastback model. Flow field simulation of baseline model and optimized model were executed. The drag coefficient of baseline model and optimized model was 0.28 and 0.29. The optimization brings a 3.4% reduction to the baseline model. The conclusions can provide reference to automotive body design.