Keywords: aeroelastic tailoring, lamination parameters, ModelCenter, VSAERO, Nastran, Formula One.

In Formula 1 racing, the rear wing's angle-of-attack is determined by the required downforce needed to get around a turn. Because the angle-of-attack is fixed, this reduces the maximum speed on a straight track due to the increase in induced drag. A passive method to reduce the angle-of-attack at higher velocities (wash-out) is investigated by inducing bending-torsion coupling to the rear wing's torsion box. This coupling is achieved by using an extension-shear coupled upper and lower skin to create a circumferentially asymetric (CAS) lay-up of the torsion box. In this way the coupling matrix B remains zero.

A two-dimensional aeroelastic analysis indicates that by applying a negative bending-twisting coupling, a passive reduction in angle-of-attack can be achieved.

Both a three-dimensional structural and aerodynamic model are created. In the structural model, the material properties for the upper and lower skin are defined in terms of lamination parameters [1]. The finite element (FE) analysis is performed using Nastran, with its linear solver. The aerodynamic calculations on the aerodynamic model are performed using the panelcode VSAERO.

The fluid-structure coupling is achieved by using the compactly supported, decaying Wendland's C² [2] radial basis function to transfer loads and displacements between the two non-identical meshes. Using ModelCenter, the FE code Nastran and the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) panelcode VSAERO are loosely coupled to simulate the aeroelastic [3] deformation of the wing. The lamination parameters of the CAS torsion box are optimised using a surface response optimiser, to minimise the induced drag of the rear wing.

Results indicate a drag reduction at high velocity compared to the conventional benchmark wing, while maintaining the required downforce at low velocity. From a multi-body simulation it is also shown that the optimised rear wing has a straight line acceleration advantage compared to a benchmark wing.

1

Gürdal Z., Haftka R., Hajela P., Design and Optimization of Laminated Composite Materials, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1999.

2

Beckert A., "Coupling fluid (CFD) and structural (FE) models using finite interpolation elements", Aerosp. Sci. Technol., Vol. 4, pp. 13-22, 2000. doi:10.1016/S1270-9638(00)00111-5

3

Bisplinghoff R., Ashley H., Halfman R., Aeroelasticity, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., 1955.

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