A review of “performance analysis and optimization of car air spoilers”

Abstract

Abstract Before last decade, due to surplus amount of fuel, cars are designed for high speed operation, comfort and safety. As scarcity of fuel increases due to high consumption of fuel in automobiles, many researchers started working on the idea of alternative fuels, redesign of car body and reducing aerodynamic losses. To overcome these losses spoilers are used and hence it is needed to optimize its shape. This study is primarily focused to find out optimized shape of car spoiler so that mass can be minimized which help in reducing fuel consumption without affecting its aerodynamic properties and strength. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis of two dimensional model of spoiler is done whose results are validated by earlier research work in this field for understanding variation of aerodynamic property of cross-section. Three dimensional CFD analysis of spoiler gives aerodynamic property and pressure data which is needed to compare result of optimized model formed by optimized cross-sectional shape. Shape optimization is done by Shape Optimization tool of ANSYS 14.0 which is further tested for design failure in ABAQUS 6.11. The result of shape optimization has saved 18.74% of material keeping all its strength and aerodynamic property intact. This study open provides a numerical tool for improvement of future model of spoiler in terms of reduction of mass.