In the last years, thanks to the development of computational capabilities, the CAE methodology has become an essential tool in the design especially in the preliminary phase and configuration analysis. This happens also and above all in the fluid dynamic design by using CFD codes, which have reached high levels of reliability. In recent years the simulation times have significantly reduced and this means that the preprocessing phase has become the real bottleneck within the project. The engineering consulting companies can face trouble to define standard methodologies for the analysis, because of the wide range of application fields, and need to reduce operational costs and response times to be competitive. This kind of problems induce us to find a strategy to automate the entire design process as much as possible. This work aims at showing the use of ANSA tools for our cases, and the development of preprocessing automation methods easily adaptable to most of them.
Authors: Dr. Marco Maganzi (University of Pisa, CubitLab), Giovanni Lombardi (University of Pisa), Antonio Ercoli (University of Pisa)
Antonio Ercoli, Giacomo De Angeli, Giovanni Lombardi, Marco Maganzi
2019
Cubit, Maserati, Università di Pisa
Abstract
In automotive design, the study of the water thin layer over a car due to rain is becoming increasingly important: the challenge is to obtain a way to describe the behavior of the water over a vehicle in rainy conditions and its interactions with wipers and drainage systems, to determine potential failures of the vehicle design.
In this paper two similar numeric procedures have been realized with the software STAR CCM+ to analyze the dynamic of water thin layer starting from the impingement of the rain on the car surface and taking into account even the motion of the wipers over the windshield. Moreover, the water that flows through the drainage systems is monitored to figure out if the water could produce a malfunction of components near them.
In order to describe each status of the water, many multiphase models are used. These methodologies have been applied on a commercial vehicle model and the results have been examined and compared to each other. The analysis shows a better description of the reality for one of them, leading to the possibility of using it as a design tool in the automotive industry.
Conference/Journal: International Journal of Automotive Technology, Vol. 20, pp. 1123-1129 (2019)
