Aeroelastic analysis of a single element composite wing in ground effect using Fluid Structure Interaction

The present work focuses on an advanced coupling of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and structural analysis (FEA) on the aeroelastic behaviour of a single element inverted composite wing with the novelty of including the ground effect. The front wing of the Formula One (F1) car can become flexible under the fluid loading due to elastic characteristics of composite materials, resulting in changing the flow field and eventually altering overall aerodynamics. The purpose of this study is to setup an accurate fluid-structure interaction (FSI) modelling framework and to assess the influence of elastic behaviour of the wing in ground effect on the aerodynamic and structural performance. Different turbulence models are studied to better capture the changes of the flow field and variation of ride heights are considered to investigate the influence of ground effect on aerodynamic phenomena. A steady-state two-way coupling method is exploited to run the FSI numerical simulations using ANSYS, which enables simultaneous calculation by coupling CFD with FEA. The effect of various composite structures on the wing performance is extensively studied concerning structure configuration, ply orientation and core materials. The numerical results generally represent good agreement with the experimental data, however, discrepancy, especially in the aerodynamic force, is presented. This may be consequence of less effective angle of attack due to the wing deflection and deterioration of vortex-induced effect. For the structural analysis, the woven structure gives rise to more stable structural deflection than the unidirectional structure despite the associated weight penalty.