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2009 Formula One Aerodynamics BMW Sauber F1.09 – Fundamentally

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Conference Paper · July 2009

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EASC 2009 Munich, Germany
4th European Automotive Simulation Conference 6-7 July 2009

2009 Formula One Aerodynamics

BMW Sauber F1.09 – Fundamentally Different
Torbjörn Larsson
BMW Sauber F1 Team, Hinwil, Switzerland

ABSTRACT

To make Formula One more attractive to a broader audience, radical changes to the FIA
technical regulations have been imposed for the 2009 season. Primarily, the lack of
overtaking and exciting wheel-to-wheel racing is believed to be a direct consequence of the
massive levels of aerodynamics down force generated by modern F1 cars. Therefore, these
new regulations are targeting a significant reduction in achievable aero forces via specific
restrictions to the shaping of the vehicle exterior. This should also lead to more aero
performance retained on cars following in the wake of another car.

Claiming back lost aero performance (to good levels) proved to be a true challenge for the
aerodynamicists. Reliance exclusively on knowledge and insights gained from intensive
engineering of concepts in the past was not going to be adequate to propel this project. New
insights were essential, and a comprehensive CFD campaign became instrumental in
devising the development path for a fundamentally different race car, BMW Sauber F1.09.

1. BACKGROUND

The winds of change are blowing through Formula One. The 2009 season sees arguably the
most significant rewrite of the F1 technical rulebook in the history of the sport.
New rules governing tires, aerodynamics and Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS),
among others, are considered to be the biggest changes in the Formula One regulations for
several decades. Driving forces behind these rule changes are the increasing needs for cost-
cutting and improvements to the on-track spectacle.

The aim of the new aerodynamic regulations, as well as the reintroduction of slick tyres, is to
decrease reliance on aerodynamic down force and increase mechanical grip with the aim of
making wheel-to-wheel racing easier, and hence, promote overtaking. These radical rule
changes have literally brought the F1 engineers back to the drawing boards to start from a
clean sheet of paper.

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EASC 2009 Munich, Germany
4th European Automotive Simulation Conference 6-7 July 2009

Figure 1: The BMW Sauber 2009 (left) vs. 2008 (right) F1 racing cars.

2. AERODYNAMICS DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

The development of the BMW Sauber 2009 F1 contender had to centre on the three key
areas; tire utilization, aerodynamics and KERS integration. Addressed herein are exclusively
the engineering challenges associated with the aerodynamics development of this brand new
race car.
Here one obvious design approach is to start from what you got, i.e. the existing race car,
and convert it into a concept that complies with the new aero regulations. This is an ideal
task for the CFD engineers, far more practical than building up any physical models for
testing.
By doing so, the very first CFD predictions revealed an overall down force reduction by more
than 50%! Such a tremendous performance loss is not at all surprising, given that the
existing race car is an evolution over many years of engineering and design (with relatively
stable rules), whereas the 2009 spec car had to be something more of a revolution to meet
the new standards.

By nature and definition, revolution is disruptive to people, well-functioning organizations and

processes. Hence, achieving revolutionary goals through an evolutionary process would be
the desired path to the future. Still, taking such a path requires a process of adequate
flexibility to allow for an efficient collection of new knowledge and insights. In this case,
relying too much on experiences and know-how from the past might not necessarily bring
enough leverage to propel the development forward at a sufficient rate, and it can even (in a
worst case) be misleading.

Hence, rather than building upon incremental refinements from a given design point, this
requires several fundamentally different concepts to be analysed in order to populate a
sufficiently broad design space.
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and High Performance Computing (HPC) hold the keys
to the success of such a design process.

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EASC 2009 Munich, Germany
4th European Automotive Simulation Conference 6-7 July 2009

2.1 CFD Methods and High Performance Computing

The Hinwil based race team (before 2005 known as Sauber Petronas) has a long tradition in
using CFD for aerodynamics research and development [1-5], and the CFD group has
become an integral part of the aero department and its design processes. The launch of
Albert3 in 2008, a state-of-the-art Intel based supercomputer tailored for large scale CFD
applications, clearly underlines BMW Sauber’s strong belief in, and commitment to,
simulation technology. Rather than pursuing a second wind tunnel, the team took this
“pioneering approach” with a future more focused around CFD and high performance
computing.

Figure 2: BMW Sauber Supercomputer Albert3.

Frequently, BMW Sauber has been referred to as the “benchmark” in F1 regarding HPC and
CFD. With a close to 10,000 fold increase in available compute capacity over the last
decade, the team today performs simulation scenarios unheard of only a few years ago.

Not only from building up such an outstanding compute facility, but also very much due to the
team’s strong commitment to CFD methods development, the overall aero process efficiency
has taken a leap forward. Today, using advanced and tailor-made simulation methods, a
broad design space can be explored in a relatively short period of time to devise directions
for further and more extended research. And before committing to any physical parts
production, many design concepts and ideas can be evaluated with good confidence on
Albert3.

3. FLOW PHYSICS AND AERODYNAMICS

The intricacy of the aerodynamics of a Formula One car is still one of the most fascinating
aspects in the engineering of a competitive race car. In particular, the ability to control and
stabilize flow patterns emanating from the exposed wheels is of fundamental importance in
order to extract the ultimate aerodynamics performance from any open-wheel racing car.

Copyright ANSYS, Inc.

EASC 2009 Munich, Germany
4th European Automotive Simulation Conference 6-7 July 2009

Fig
gure 3: BMW
W Sauber F1.09
F with CFD
C stream
mlines overla
aid.

3.1 F1 Aerodynam
A mics 2009
In essennce the 20009 FIA techn ations have had the folllowing signiificant implications
nical regula
to the ve
ehicle exterrior shaping
g:
9 Narrower
N and Taller Rear Wing pllaced Highe
er Up
9 Wider and Lower
L Fron
nt Wing with
h Unloaded Centre Secction
9 Underbody Diffuser sta
arts Furtherr Back
9 Far
F Fewer Add-On
A Air-
r-Control De
evices (wing
glets, barge-boards etcc.)

The prim
me and imm nges was a dramatic reduction in
mediate efffect of thesse rule chan n overall
down foorce (~50%
%). To claim
m back losst aero perfformance (down
( forcee and efficiency) a
comprehensive undderstanding
g of the flow
w physics is vital.

Figure 4:
4 2008 exte
erior (left) vs.
v 2009 extterior (right)).

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EASC 2009 Munich, Germany
4th European Automotive Simulation Conference 6-7 July 2009

Some noticeable
n o
observations
s are:

Rear wing becomes more of a stand-alon

9 R ne device and
a flow in
nteractions with the
u
underbody and diffuse
er are much reduced
9 R
Revised difffuser desig
gn has a drramatic effe erbody flow where mos
ect on unde st of the
o
overall dow
wn force is being
b genera
rated
9 Exclusion
E o auxiliary wings
of w has a large direc
ct and indire
ect impact o
on down forrce
9 Front
F wing flow and itss interaction
n with the re
est of the ca
ar is remarka
ably differen
nt

As a co onsequence e of the maajor concep ptual chang ge to the frront wing design the front
f tire
wake flow has cha anged radically. This affects the e rest of thee car in a very differe
ent way.
Added tot this is the completee ban of auxxiliary airflo
ow control devices,
d maaking contro
olling the
tire wakke flow mucch more diffficult than before.
b Tran nsient CFD simulationss on early concepts
c
also connfirmed more flow flucttuations andd instabilitie
es.

Early co
onceptual CFD
C studie
es to the 2009 aero regulations
r revealed flow structures with
underlying mechannisms fundaamentally different
d to what
w was believed
b to be well und
derstood
and highly enginee
ered conceppts, apparen
nt on the previous yearr’s race carss.

Figure 5: Wake
e flow patte
erns behind 2008 and 2009
2 race ccars.

ure 6: Frontt wing / tire flow

Figu f interacction. 2008 concept
c (lefft) vs. 2009 concept (riight).

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EASC 2009 Munich, Germany
4th European Automotive Simulation Conference 6-7 July 2009

Thus, tot gain furtther insightts into imp portant underlying floww mechanissms, a larg ge CFD
researcch campaign n was initia
ated, with main
m focus on ng – tire intteraction. Being the
o front win
foremosst device thhe front wing design iss of paramo ance for ovverall aerodynamics
ount importa
perform
mance. In pa articular the wing intera t tire wake is crucial for the conditioning
action with the
of the on-set flow to
o the underrbody.

Figure 7: Front
F wing flow
fl pattern..

Unloadiing the centre portion of the wingg, via the mandatory FIA section, results in a distinct
vortex being
b shed off the flap inboard tip as depicted in Figure 7 above. In n addition, having
h a
wider wing
w span pushes
p the outboard wing
w tip vorrtices outsid
de of the fro
ont tire. Co
ontrolling
these flow paths iss of fundam
mental importance and one of the key consid derations foor finding
aero pe
erformance.

These dominating
d flow structu
ures, how th hey interactt and influe
ence the carr, where inittially not
very we ell understo
ood. Via a large DO OE mapping g in CFD of front wiing shapes s a new
knowled dge base coould be built-up relativvely quickly.. This was achieved vvia coupling g tailored
methods for morph hing, re-messhing and optimization
o n to the FLUUENT solve er which alloowed for
an efficient scanning of a brooad design space. A similar appro oach in the
e wind tunne el would
not be feasible
f give
en time andd cost consttraints.

4. CONCLUSIONS
S

In the liight of the present eco

onomic climmate, efficie
ency in proccesses has become of utmost
importance. More than everr before, ad dvances in n CFD / HPC method ds, process ses and
infrastru
ucture play an increasingly important role to stay
s compeetitive in anyy fast past in
ndustrial
environment. Form mula One iss no different, and CFD has grow wn to be an integral pa art of the
BMW Sauber
S teamm’s aerodyna
amics resea arch and deevelopmentt programme.

Developping to the 2009 rule book has highlighted

h how CFD today
t is takking the lea
ad in F1
aerodynnamics rese earch. In particular, the
t outcom nt wing dessign study became
me of a fron
instrume
ental in devvising the de
evelopmentt path for the 2009 F1 race
r car.

By the time for thee oral pressentation at the EASC conference e in Münich h this summmer, the
2009 F1 season iss well unde erway and wew should already have had a cclear sugge estion on
how goood of a job we did on finding
f aero
o performan
nce given th
he highly revvised and re
estricted
technica
al regulation
ns.

Copyright ANSYS, Inc.

EASC 2009 Munich, Germany
4th European Automotive Simulation Conference 6-7 July 2009

REFERENCES

[1] Akanni S., Larsson T., Bienz C.‚ Numerical Modelling of the Aerodynamic Flow Field
about a Formula One Car, Fluent User Group Meeting, Germany 2001.

[2] Bienz C., Larsson T., Sato T., Ullbrand B., In Front of the Grid – CFD at SAUBER
PETRONAS F1 Leading the Aerodynamic Development, 1st European Automotive CFD
Conference, Bingen, Germany, 2003.

[3] Kremenetsky M., Larsson T., Numerical Studies on a ccNUMA Computer Architecture
for a Large Scale Race Car Aerodynamics Simulation, Parallel Computational Fluid
Dynamics 2004, Elsevier Science, ISBN: 978-0-444-52024-1.

[4] Larsson T., Sato T., Ullbrand B., Supercomputing in F1 – Unlocking the Power of CFD,
2nd European Automotive CFD Conference, Frankfurt, Germany, 2005.

[5] Larsson T., High Performance Computing – Shaping the Future of Formula One,
Masterwork Session, 2007 International Supercomputing Conference, Reno, NV, USA.

Copyright ANSYS, Inc.

 EASC 2009 Munich, Germany
4th European Automotive Simulation Conference 6-7 July 2009

Copyright ANSYS, Inc.

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