| Designing an Electric Formula Student Car’s body has many steps. It starts from sketching, measuring the frame to know the body dimension, and running the simulation test to get an aerodynamic body that assist the car to be much faster and more stable. All dimensions of the basic design and sketch are taken from the Formula SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) rule book. The designing process is done by the computer using SolidWorks program for the 3D drawing, and using SolidWorks Flow Simulation for the simulation process. When making the 3 dimension drawing, it is necessary to use the mirror feature, thus the left and the right part of the body will be symmetric. In order to get an aerodynamic body, the body shape should be designed close to the shape of a bullet. After the drawing finish, it should be tested in the simulation to know whether the body is qualified. The simulation is run with the velocity value of 50 km/h, which is the limit of the electric motor. Choosing the electric motor is done by considering some aspects such as costs and the power source. The parameter which is to be negligible is the roughness of the body, and the parameter which is to be set as constant is the air temperature. The program will obtain the drag force (Fd) result. The drag force value will then be converted to coefficient of drag (Cd). The coefficient of drag value should not be larger than 0.3 as a general standard for a race car. To get a valid and convergent result (Cd = 0.3), the simulation was run 3 times. The simulation results in Cd of 0.242313. This result proves that the electric formula student car’s body is ready to be built for a race. |