Club F3 Base Aero setup
I am a Club F3 racer and looking to try and get some base data on my early 90's Ralt Formula 3 car.
I have built a 3D model of my car based on measuring the car I have accurate front and rear wing geometry and reasonable body shape accuracy I beleive, as well as suspension and wheels etc, probably too much detail. Have drawn this in RhinoV4. Is it realistic to take this model, or a simplfied version into Caedium, through Exchange, Rhino is Nurbs based and can certainly export as stl. I want to try and get base lift and drag data for the varying front an rear wing settings, varying ride height and estimate aero balance across these conditions. I am an engineer with good general software skills but no specific CFD experience.
Is Caedium the answer for a Club racer like me, Simon Mcbeath suggested in Racecar Engineering it might be. Do I need a degree in fluid dynamics to get anything usefull?
Ideal Candidate
Yes I think you should be able to get up and running with Caedium Professional for your car.
I'd suggest first simplifying your geometry in Rhino along the lines described in "Design for Simulation then Manufacture". If you can I'd also suggest constructing your first flow volume in Rhino too, i.e., subtract your car from a box defining the outer boundary.
Then export your model out of Rhino using STEP (.stp), which will preserve your true geometry (NURBS) and topology. STL isn't any use for RANS CFD simulations in Caedium.
As an example of configuring a car simulation in Caedium take a look at the tutorial "Flow Over a CO2 Dragster"
For some background on CFD try "Overview: Geometry To Results" and for some general fluid mechanics with CFD try "CFD Novice to Expert Reloaded".
Ideal Candidate
Thanks will do some simplification and research