Newey casts doubt on CFD-only designs

[John S]

Now 'Joe 90' has spoken, I'm not sure if the drivers of cars like Virgin will be quite as comfortable about their potential this year. But as always until they have faced several races in anger this is all speculation.

Hard to imagine anything to do with Virgin being described as disceet though. 

Adrian Newey has doubts that a Formula 1 team can successfully design a car without using a wind-tunnel, as Virgin Racing's 'virtual' VR-01 gets ready for its first proper test at Jerez this week.

Virgin Racing has produced the first modern era car not to have been near a wind tunnel, with chief designer Nick Wirth adamant that modern computer simulations are good enough to deliver all the information he needed.

However, famed designer Newey thinks that CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) still has its limits - and that wind tunnels remain a vital part of car development.

"I think CFD is a very powerful tool, there is no doubt about it, and it is another way of simulating the real environment," Newey said at the Red Bull launch when asked for his opinion on the Virgin Racing car. "A wind tunnel is a simulation of the real world.

"CFD is an electronic simulation of a real environment, but it still has pitfalls - not least that every single run in CFD for a given attitude of the car, or ride height, or whatever it might be, is a discreet run. Whereas in the wind tunnel, what we call a normal run, will have 20 or more data points in it. In other words, that is equivalent to 20 runs in the CFD.

"That is a limitation of size really, so your CFD cluster has to be that much bigger to do that many runs. And there are some areas that CFD physically doesn't capture as well as a wind tunnel - like basic aerodynamic properties.

"So how well it turns out, we shall see. It is a different route, and my personal belief is that you still need to combine the two at the moment. But maybe their car will go very well and I will have to revise my opinion."

By Jonathan Noble and Edd Straw Autosport.com, Today

[Jericoke]

The main limitation that I'd see of CFD is that the computer can only predict things that are already known.  If something unusual or radical is done... there is no guarantee that CFD will be right, whereas a windtunnel shows the actual forces at work.

CFD only would produce a good car at a reduced cost, but I wouldn't rely on it for a 'great' car.

Of course, until they race, it all remains to be seen.

[PG_Gabriel]

I saw the Virgin ran only 5 laps today and was the slowest, anyone know whats up??

[John S]

I saw the Virgin ran only 5 laps today and was the slowest, anyone know whats up??

They never got on track before the rain came in, all the other teams managed to set a time on a dry track in the first hour on the track. Even experienced teams find it hard to get proper data from wet running, as a new team they have nothing to compare any data to so they probably just did a few installation laps and will try again tomorrow. It dried up about 2 hours from the end but the track temperature never recovered so the times from the early runs remained the best.

[lkjohnson1950]

In the past designers have found that even a good wind tunnel can give a false read on real track performance. You simply cannot duplicate a dynamic environment like a race track in a relatively static way. I suspect the Virgin car will be rather like the Renaults of the last few years, close but not competitive. And without a driver of Ferd's ability welcome to the back of the grid.

Lonny

[John S]

Now the Bulldog adds his weight to Newey's argument. Have Virgin set themselves up as tail end charlie's this season by design?

Gascoyne doubts all-CFD design    By Jonathan Noble Autosport.com, yesterday.
 
Lotus technical chief Mike Gascoyne says he is sceptical about the chances of a team being successful in Formula 1 using only computer simulations to design its car.

On the back of a big focus on Virgin Racing's difficult start to testing at Jerez in Spain this week, Gascoyne has joined design genius Adrian Newey in claiming that the use of wind tunnels remains vital in F1.

Virgin Racing's new VR-01 is the first modern era F1 car to have been designed without the use of wind tunnel - with technical head Nick Wirth having just used Computational Fluid Dynamics. Speaking about the CFD tactic, Gascoyne said: "I think it is an integral part, but it is not a complete part."

When asked about his reaction to Newey's comments, Gascoyne said: "Well, I think he is one of the best aerodynamicists in F1. I used to be an aerodynamicist, and my PhD was in CFD, and I think I would kind of agree with him.

"You look at BMW when Albert II was announced as one of the world's biggest supercomputers dedicated just to their CFD. If you look at Enstone, they built their environmentally-friendly CFD centre with a huge computing resource. I don't think these guys are idiots, and they also have wind tunnels.

"I know Bob Bell at Renault very well, he is a clever guy who gave me my first job in F1 and he is a trained aerodynamicist - and I think he thinks you need a wind tunnel. I think CFD is a very exciting technology and it is advancing, but is it an absolute? I don't think there are many people who think it is."

[raindancer]

Early days for using only CFD for car design but it is inexorable that the usage is going to increase. A lot of Aircraft manufacturers rely on CFD but probably have better resources compared to car designers.
However car design costs are a huge issue and simulation of car behaviour in real time is the challenge for technology which is getting powerful all the time.