University of Toronto runs CFD simulations on ACTnowHPC cloud to optimize Formula SAE car design

The University of Toronto Formula SAE Racing Team is a student‐run club focused on designing, building and competing with an open‐wheeled race car at Formula Student competitions held globally.

In early 2018 the student team partnered with Advanced Clustering Technologies to make use of the company’s on-demand cloud solution, ACTnowHPC. Using Simulia’s Star-CCM+ to run computational fluid dynamics simulations, the team developed numerous iterations of the front wing’s end plates.

Front wings are critical to formula car design because this area has a significant effect on the aerodynamics of a car. Why? Because it precedes the rest of the car and directs the airflow back toward the rest of the vehicle.

ACTnowHPC gave the team access to high end cpus and a high core counts that were not previously available to them. ACTnowHPC runs on bare metal
hardware, not virtualized machines, in order to reduce run times and optimize results. And the results were impressive.

“Our efficiency has spiked massively,” said Jonathan Lee, senior aerodynamics member. “For example, for our front wing design, we have been able to increase our estimated downforce by 25%. That is a very promising start.”

Read more about the ACTnowHPC cloud solution at www.actnowhpc.com. You can sign up for a free trial.

Download the full case study here:

Case Study: UTFR Runs CFD Simulations in the Cloud to Optimize Formula SAE Car Design