CFD Flow

The Brief

In any vehicle design and consideration of transportation, attention needs to be given to the energy required to overcome the drag associated with airflow over the vehicle and the aerodynamic performance of the transportation unit in differing weather conditions. Your overall tasks are to select a vehicle archetype to explore, research and undertake outline modelling in order to assess the aerodynamic performance of a new vehicle for launch in the market and present your arising concept.

My Inspiration

The car that was chosen for this project was a pickup truck. This was because in my home country of the United States of America, the pickup truck is the most widely used car format. The models of RAM, Chevrolet and Ford very frequently tops the leader board of best-selling car model. Pickup trucks symbolize the American values of freedom and self-reliance as they are very versatile and rugged, they can be used for everything from picking up the weekly shop to overlanding in the plains of Montana. The pickup in this exercise was based on current pickup trucks so that the efficiency of such trucks can be measured as a baseline. In future projects the design was adapted to fit today’s societal standards while also keeping the heritage and design culture of previous versions.

Skills Developed

CAD - shoring up my cad skills in Solidworks with using some Surfacing tools to create more complex organic shapes

Theoretical Calculations - Design is based on knowledge gained in the course in fluid flow

Simulation - Used Solidworks to get an interactive overview of the effectiveness of the design concepts.

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