The Formula Student Race is a European offshoot of the Formula SAE Competition in the USA, where more than 100 universities compete in an exciting contest. Many universities that participated in the USA also compete in the Formula Student Race in Europe.
In the Formula Student Race, engineering students develop, build, and race ‘Formula-style’ racing cars. The competition jury evaluates not only the design and technical aspects of the cars but also their performance across various dynamic disciplines. These include brake tests, figure-of-eight driving, acceleration tests, autocross, and an endurance race, where students must drive their car for 20 laps around a challenging course.
One of the most critical components of a car is the engine. In these engines, air required for combustion is supplied via an intake pipe. To limit the total amount of air for the engine—and thus its power—a ring with a specific diameter prescribed by the regulations must be inserted into the centre of the intake pipe. This ring is called a ‘restrictor’. Since the diameter of the air filter connection on one side and the expansion piece on the other is larger than the diameter of the restrictor, the axisymmetrical intake pipe consists of a converging and a diverging section. Particularly in the diverging part of the intake pipe, various fluid mechanical effects such as flow separation and shock waves can occur, which can significantly reduce engine performance.
To prevent these effects, FlowMotion developed the shape of the intake pipe for the Delft student team. As it is extremely difficult to conduct precise velocity measurements inside a 40 mm pipe, the shape was developed using flow simulations. On the computer, a large number of different shapes could be examined in a short time. This led to the minimisation of fluid mechanical resistance and the maximisation of air supply for all engine operating states occurring during the race.
As a final result, the Delft team achieved 16th place out of 40 teams in Birmingham on 3 July 2002.
