Need suggestions to select undergraduate project
 

Hi everyone!

I'm an undergraduate student of Mechanical Engineering who has to submit a project/thesis as part of the final semester.

I started watching Formula 1 in the lockdown and ever since I've developed an interest towards aerodynamics and CFD.

I'd like to work on a project which would get me started on my CFD journey and prove to be a good learning experience (I have no prior experience using CFD tools and have very basic knowledge of fluid dynamics)

I have come up with few topics and need help to finalize on a topic. I study in a very average college where professors generally don't care what the students do. (Many buy projects from the market and submit it)

I have only 2 months to complete this and I may have come up with complex problems which can't be completed within the deadline as I honestly don't know what I'm getting myself into.

So these are the topics.

1. Testing different designs of wheel "flaps?" and it's effects on the tyre wake of an F1 car. (The fender like thing over the tyres of 2022 F1 cars)

2. Analysing the cooling performance of different brake duct configurations.

3. Analyse the effects of an "active diffuser" on the drag of a DrivAer model. (I'm trying to do something as shown in this video (https://youtu.be/x_XV0bVYB3w)

4. Analysing the influence of vortex generators on the aerodynamic characteristics of a DrivAer model.

Also, I don't want to just produce colourful simulations without understanding what's behind it so I am reading Anderson's books on CFD and Aerodynamics.

Any help on how to proceed further on a chosen topic or new topic suggestions will be much appreciated :)

P.S. I don't have access to a wind tunnel

DrivAer model : https://www.cfd-online.com/Wiki/DrivAer_Model.

Don't select anything involving vortices.


Those will require large computational power and time, and you might not have cpu clusters available to you.


Select something that's simple and can be solved with RANS based models.


If the teachers don't care, and the project is not something that needs to be extremely good and high quality, I would recommend selecting something that's very simple and looks good.


I have one idea in mind, but I don't want to force my ideas onto you.


If you would like to know what would be "good enough" for a project, and don't mind my suggestion, then let me know.

Thanks for the reply! I'm very much interested to know more about your idea!

And you're right regarding my access to computational resources. All I have is a laptop with an 8GB RAM and 4GB graphics. So vortices are ruled out I guess.

Regarding the simplicity, the thing is I could get away with a very simple project but I'm trying to build my profile to apply for a Masters in Aerospace Engineering so I'd like to put more effort into this project and it would also reassure my interests in this field (I have some dilemma on proceeding further with the Masters)

I like your active diffuser idea. That can be solved quite cheaply on a low end PC.


I think you should follow your idea. I shouldn't tell you what to do.


If you want something new, here's a new wing design for F1 cars : https://youtu.be/t0-wXT12wgw

Thank you so much for your suggestions :)

Could you suggest any learning material which I could go through or general tips on how to "attack" this project? Currently I'm thinking of utilizing ANSYS fluent. Would it suit my purpose?

start the project.
waiting to find the best time, method, strategy is useless.

I agree. Thank you for taking the time to reply. I'll post my results after completion :)