Development of a tool for the integrated evaluation of the aerodynamic performance (V.I.PER.A)

In Dallara Automobili S.p.A, the development of an instrument for integrated evaluation of aerodynamic performance ("strumento per la Valutazione Integrata delle PERformance Aerodinamiche" - V.I.PER.A) stems from the need to evaluate various aerodynamic options in the wind tunnel, through the analysis of a single number: the car lap time on a specific track. Due to the ever-increasing volume of data generated during a wind tunnel run, a new method for condensing the quality of a single option into a singular parameter becomes necessary. The purpose of this study is to create the Octave code and validate the V.I.PER.A software, based on a specific case study of racing car and track. The tool enables lap time evaluation without resorting to the iterative use of a driven simulator, which would result too time-consuming. This feature is fundamental for immediately evaluating results against previous session runs. Using the Kriging interpolation model, the algorithm estimates lap aerodynamic data from both the car setup data simulated preliminarly on a track, and wind tunnel outputs. Track data are provided by the vehicle dynamic department. V.I.PER.A was tested with outputs from three wind tunnel sessions, calculating lap times for the engineer-chosen configuration (BoS-H) and the V.I.PER.A-recommended configuration (BoS-V). The tool was validated by comparing these results with those from the Dallara lap timer estimator (DLE). The BoS-V configuration showed good correlation with DLE, while BoS-H had discordant results in one session. In two sessions, BoS-V demonstrated greater lap time gains than BoS-H, confirmed by both DLE and the developed software.