Downloaded from SAE International by University of Minnesota, Tuesday, July 31, 2018

SAE TECHNICAL
PAPER SERIES 2002-01-3294

The Effects of Wing Aerodynamics on

Race Vehicle Performance
Noah J. Mckay and Ashok Gopalarathnam
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering,
North Carolina State University

Reprinted From: Proceedings of the 2002 SAE Motorsports

Engineering Conference and Exhibition
(P-382)

Motorsports Engineering
Conference & Exhibition
Indianapolis, Indiana
December 2-5, 2002

400 Commonwealth Drive, Warrendale, PA 15096-0001 U.S.A. Tel: (724) 776-4841 Fax: (724) 776-5760 Web: www.sae.org
 Downloaded from SAE International by University of Minnesota, Tuesday, July 31, 2018

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior written permission of SAE.

For permission and licensing requests contact:

SAE Permissions
400 Commonwealth Drive
Warrendale, PA 15096-0001-USA
Email: permissions@sae.org
Fax: 724-772-4028
Tel: 724-772-4891

For multiple print copies contact:

SAE Customer Service

Tel: 877-606-7323 (inside USA and Canada)
Tel: 724-776-4970 (outside USA)
Fax: 724-776-1615
Email: CustomerService@sae.org

ISSN 0148-7191
Copyright © 2002 SAE International

Positions and opinions advanced in this paper are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of SAE.
The author is solely responsible for the content of the paper. A process is available by which discussions
will be printed with the paper if it is published in SAE Transactions.

Persons wishing to submit papers to be considered for presentation or publication by SAE should send the
manuscript or a 300 word abstract of a proposed manuscript to: Secretary, Engineering Meetings Board, SAE.

Printed in USA
 Downloaded from SAE International by University of Minnesota, Tuesday, July 31, 2018
The Effects of Wing Aerodynamics on Race
Vehicle Performance
Copyright © 2002 SAE International
ABSTRACT
An analytical study is presented to determine the effects
of wing aerodynamics on various racecar performance
characteristics and on lap times for different types of
tracks. The North Carolina State University (NCSU)
Formula SAE car is used as the racing vehicle for this
study. The study integrates design and analysis
methods for airfoils and wings with performance-
simulation methods for the racecar. Various
performance parameters are considered to study in
detail the effects on different portions of the track.
A single wing is first used to examine the effects of
aerodynamic downforce on car performance without
considerations of the fore-and-aft location of the
aerodynamic center of pressure. Subsequently a
traditional dual-wing setup with a front and a rear wing is
used to study the effect of downforce while satisfying a
constraint on the location of the aerodynamic center of
pressure. Three airfoils with systematic changes to the
camber are used as candidates for the section shapes.
Results are first presented for the racecar performance
with the three airfoils during cornering, straight-line
braking, and straight-line acceleration conditions. The
effect on lap times for different track geometries is then
presented for the single-wing configuration followed by
the dual-wing configuration. The results for the single-
wing case show that for a majority of the cases
examined, the best performance occurs at the
maximum-lift condition of the wing, indicating that the
design goal is one of maximizing wing downforce. For a
few track geometries, however, the results indicate that
the optimum performance occurs when the wing is
operating at less than the maximum-downforce
condition. The loss in performance due to increase in
drag associated with increasing the downforce beyond
this optimum value outweighs the benefits of the
additional downforce. The results for the dual-wing setup
show that the range of possible operating points for the
rear wing is considerably reduced by the constraint that
the front-wing downforce has to balance the rear-wing
downforce. The approach is suitable for the
determination of the most-suitable wing for a given track.
While the results in the paper focus on the NCSU
2002-01-3294
Noah J. Mckay* and Ashok Gopalarathnam†
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering,
North Carolina State University
Formula SAE car, the methods, results and discussion
are applicable to a variety of racing vehicles with wings.
INTRODUCTION
The importance of aerodynamic down force for improved
performance of racing vehicles is well known [1,2]. Mean
lap times at all tracks continue to decrease as engineers
become more familiar with the aerodynamic effects on
car performance and learn how to use this knowledge to
their advantage via computational studies [3,4] and wind-
tunnel experiments [4].
There are usually several constraints on the generation
of aerodynamic downforce on racecars. Some of the
constraints are imposed by the race rules such as those
that dictate the maximum size of the wings, the sizes of
“box” constraints on the geometry of the airfoil shape, as
well as the minimum height of the front wing from the
ground. In addition, there are some practical constraints
as well. In order to maintain desirable handling qualities,
there is a definite constraint on the fore-and-aft location
of the aerodynamic center of pressure (CP) for the car.
Typically the CP needs to be located within a certain
distance forward or behind the car center of gravity (CG)
[1]. For a car with front and rear wings, the constraint on
the location of the CP defines the front-to-rear
aerodynamic balance for the downforce. As a result, the
incidence of each of the wings needs to be adjusted to
ensure the correct balance. Another consideration
associated with increased downforce is the
accompanying increase in aerodynamic drag. It is
sometimes not clear as to whether the performance
decrease due to the increased drag can outweigh the
benefits of the downforce.
This paper presents an approach to the analysis of the
effects of wing downforce on racecar performance. The
effects of the CP-location constraint for a dual wing
configuration and the additional drag associated with the
downforce are both taken into consideration. The effect
of the downforce on the total lap-time performance is
studied by examining the effect on three portions of the
track: steady-state cornering, straight-line braking, and
straight-line acceleration.
 Downloaded from SAE International by University of Minnesota, Tuesday, July 31, 2018

In this paper, the approach has been applied to perform

a systematic study of the effects of wings on the
performance of the North Carolina State University
(NCSU) Formula SAE car. The NCSU team has
competed twice in the Formula SAE competition
sponsored by the Society of Automotive Engineers. The
team has enjoyed much success in its efforts finishing
18th among over 100 teams and capturing the Rookie of
the Year award for the most outstanding new team for
the 1999-2000 season. The rules for the Formula SAE
competition do not prescribe specific geometry
constraints for the wings, if wings are used for a car. As
a result of the relatively few design constraints, there
has been a wide variation in the design concepts for all
areas of the cars [5] since the first Formula SAE
competition over two decades ago. For this competition,
many teams have opted not to use wings. Among those
that do use wings, there is a broad range in shape and
size of the wings, indicating that no clear optimum
solution has been found for this design problem. Based
on this observation, it is not even clear if use of wings
would have a clear benefit for cars in this competition.

The analytical approach developed in this paper is

ideally suited to providing guidance in the design of Figure 1: Schematic representation of the single-
wings for the NCSU Formula SAE car, and for this wing configuration.
reason, this race vehicle is chosen as the example for
illustrating the results from the approach. The overall
approach, however, has a broader scope and is useful
for other race vehicles with wings.

BASELINE GEOMETRY

This section presents the baseline geometry for the

wings used in this study. For the single-wing
configuration, the primary objective is to study the effect
of the downforce without regard to the considerations of
the fore-aft balance of the car. The considerations of the
fore-aft balance constraint are considered only for the
dual-wing configuration. Figures 1 and 2 show the
single-wing and dual-wing concepts, respectively. In all
cases, the span (b) of the wings is 1.37 m. The front and
the rear wings in the dual-wing setup both have the
same chord of 0.38 m. The chord in the single-wing case
is 0.76 m, resulting in equal total planform areas for both
the single- and dual-wing setups.
Figure 2: Schematic representation of the dual-wing
Reference area, Sref = 0.52m2 configuration.

Single-wing case METHODS OF APPROACH

Single wing dimensions:
Span, b = 1.37 m In this section, the methods used for airfoil design, out-
Chord, c = 0.76 m of-ground and in-ground-effect airfoil analysis, finite-wing
Area, S = 1.04 m2 Table 1: Wing analysis, fore-and-aft balance analysis and the effect of
dimensions for these aerodynamic characteristics on the NCSU SAE
Dual-wing case the single-wing racecar performance are described. The contribution to
Front and rear wing dimensions: and dual-wing the time taken for one lap on a given track geometry has
Span, b = 1.37 m configurations. been obtained by integrating the effects of the
Chord, c = 0.38 m aerodynamics on cornering, straight-line acceleration
Area, S = 0.52 m2 and braking performance parameters.
 Downloaded from SAE International by University of Minnesota, Tuesday, July 31, 2018

AIRFOIL DESIGN FOR RACE CAR WINGS

The design of airfoils for a particular application has to

take into consideration the specific design requirements
such as operating Reynolds and Mach numbers and
design constraints such as geometry restrictions. For the
Formula SAE car wing design, the low operating speeds
and the allowable chord lengths for the wing result in a
chord Reynolds number of around 600,000. The flow
over the wings can be considered incompressible.
Unlike the wings designed for racecars in the CART and
Formula 1 series, there are no geometry constraints
such as “rule boxes” imposed by the rules for the
Formula SAE competition.

The current effort draws on recent progress in the

application of inverse airfoil design to high-lift racecar
Figure 4: Lift, drag, and moment characteristics for
wings [3] and the design of low Reynolds number airfoils
the three airfoils.
for other applications [6]. In such an inverse design
process, the emphasis is on prescribing the desired
aerodynamic characteristics on the airfoil and the shape FRONT-WING AIRFOIL ANALYSIS
of the resulting airfoil is an outcome of the design
process. Such inverse design methods have proved to The front-wing analysis needs to take the ground effect
be successful [6] in reducing the adverse effects of into consideration. One of the ways to simulate the flow
laminar separation bubbles that may otherwise over a wing in ground effect is to model the flow past the
adversely dominate the aerodynamic behavior of airfoils wing and its mirror image below the ground, as shown in
operating at the low Reynolds numbers relevant for the Fig. 5. The MSES code [10] for multi-element airfoil
current application. viscous analyses was used for this purpose, and the
aerodynamic characteristics of airfoil A was obtained in
For the current study, three airfoils with systematic ground effect over a range of angles of attack by
changes to the lift range and camber have been analyzing each case in the presence of its mirror image.
designed using the PROFOIL [7] and MFOIL inverse Figure 6 shows the characteristics of airfoil A at a height
airfoil design codes. The geometries for the three airfoils of 0.3c above the ground. Because of the proximity to
A, B, and C are shown in Fig. 3. As seen, airfoil A has the ground and the resulting adverse pressure gradients,
the least camber and airfoil C has the largest camber. the flow over the suction side of the airfoil separates
even at moderate angles of attack. As a result, the
MSES code does not converge beyond an alpha of 3
REAR-WING AIRFOIL ANALYSIS
degrees (see Fig. 6).
The airfoil characteristics for the single-wing case and
for the rear wing in the dual-wing configuration were
obtained assuming that the wing operates out of ground
effect. Furthermore, it is assumed that the car body does
not significantly influence the airfoil characteristics. The
XFOIL code [8] for single-element airfoil analysis has
been used for these out-of-ground effect analyses. The
profile-drag and lift characteristics as predicted for the
three airfoils are compared in Fig. 4. As seen from Fig.
4, airfoil C has the highest maximum lift coefficient
(CLmax). Figure 5: Airfoil A modeled in MSES [10] with image
for in-ground-effect analysis.
FINITE WING EFFECTS

Figure 3: Geometries for the three airfoils.
Owing to the fact that the trailing vortices from the wing
result in an induced flow on the wing, shown
schematically in Fig. 7, it is necessary to correct the
airfoil data for finite-wing effects in order to correctly
estimate the lift and drag on the wing. In the current
effort, the effect of the car on the wing flow field is
neglected. While this is not true in general, the
assumption allows estimation of the wing aerodynamic
forces using just the finite-wing computations.
 Downloaded from SAE International by University of Minnesota, Tuesday, July 31, 2018

the wing incidence iw, wing lift coefficient CL and wing

aspect ratio AR. These finite-wing corrections enable the
determination of the CL-iw curve for the three-
dimensional wing for the out-of-ground-effect conditions.
These curves are shown in Fig. 8 for the three airfoils.
The induced drag for both the single- and dual-wing
setups was obtained using a vortex lattice method, in
which the front and rear wings were modeled in the
presence of their mirror images below the ground plane.

CL
iw = α + (1)
πAR
FORE-AFT BALANCE ANALYSIS FOR DUAL-WING
SETUP
Figure 6: Aerodynamic characteristics of airfoil A at
The conventional arrangement of wings on a race
ground height of 0.3c.
vehicle includes a front wing usually ahead of the front
wheels and a rear wing located at or behind the rear
Local velocity axle centerline. The front wing in this arrangement is
usually placed very near the ground plane in order to
take advantage of the greater downforce that results
Freestream from the ground effect. In the current study, an
velocity assumption was made that the desired aerodynamic CP
location is 0.076m (3 inches) behind the car CG. The
fore-aft balance equations, shown in Eq. 2 and 3, were
derived by setting the moments of the aerodynamic
loads about the CP to zero, as shown in Fig. 9.

Figure 7: Schematic representation of the induced- Lr

flow effects on a finite wing.

Lf

Figure 9: Free Body Diagram of Dual Wing System.

Lr x r − L f x f − M f − M r
X cp = (2)
L f + Lr

Sr Sf Sc S f cf
C Lr xr − CL f x f − CM r xr r r − CM f x f
S ref S ref S ref cref S ref cref (3)
X cp =
Sf S
CL f + C Lr r
S ref S ref

CAR PERFORMANCE

The methods for analysis of the performance gains and

Figure 8: Wing CL-α curves for the three airfoils.
The effect of the induced flow on the operating angle of
attack of the airfoil has been discussed for CART-type
wings in Ref. 3 for wings operating out of ground effect.
Equation 1 shows the finite-wing relationship between
losses are presented for the three main areas most
pertinent to the Formula SAE car. These areas are
constant-radius cornering, straight-line braking and
straight-line acceleration. These three conditions are
subsequently combined to obtain the lap time for a given
track geometry.
 Downloaded from SAE International by University of Minnesota, Tuesday, July 31, 2018

Constant-Radius Cornering are the inertia force due to deceleration, shown in Eq. 8,
and the other due to tire grip, shown in Eq. 9.
The cornering performance of the car was obtained by
assuming constant speed and constant radius during the F = ma (8)
maneuver. With these assumptions and a basic free
body diagram, a maximum cornering velocity could be
found as a function of lift coefficient. The basic opposing (
F = µ W + 1 ρV 2 SC L .
2
) (9)
forces on a vehicle in pure cornering are the centrifugal
force, shown in Eq. 4, and the friction force provided by These equations must balance. Braking distance
the tires shown in Eq. 5. Figure 10 shows the well- between two speeds, shown in Eq. 10, is used as a
known free body diagram for the constant-radius measure of braking performance.
cornering case, assuming the vehicle to be a point
mass.
Vf
VdV
s= ³ . (10)
mV 2
Fc =
r
(4) Vi
m
µ
(W + 12 ρV 2
SC L )
F = µN (5)
Straight-Line Acceleration

Acceleration of a Formula SAE race car is typically

determined by engine power rather than tire grip as
there is excess friction force available throughout the
majority of acceleration. Therefore a power balance is
needed to find the available acceleration with the
addition of a wing. Acceleration time between two
speeds is determined in this analysis. The power
needed to accelerate a vehicle is shown in Eq. 11.

P = FV (11)

The opposing forces to acceleration are, the inertia force

ma and the drag forces Dcar, and Dwing. The power for a
Figure 10: Free Body Diagram for Constant-Radius vehicle with and without a wing is held constant and
Cornering. therefore the power balance between the two vehicles is
shown in Eq. 12. The time required for acceleration from
For a vehicle to be achieving maximum cornering these Vi to Vf is evaluated in the integral shown in Eq. 13. In
two forces must balance. The friction force can be these equations, a1 is the acceleration of the car without
rewritten, as shown in Eq. 6, to account for the wings.
increased normal force provided by the wings.
(
V (ma1 + Dcar ) = V ma 2 + Dcar + Dwing ) (12)
§ 1 · (6)
F = µ¨W + ρV 2SCL Vf
© 2 ¹ t= ³
dV
(13)
Vi § 1 ρV 2 SC D _ tot ·
Equating the centrifugal and friction forces and solving a1 − ¨¨ 2 ¸
for velocity for the cornering, shown in Eq. 7. m ¸
© ¹
W Performance For a Lap
V = (7)
m 1
− ρSC L Using the methods for calculation of the car performance
rµ 2 for the constant-radius cornering, the straight-line
braking, and the straight-line acceleration, a simple lap-
Straight-Line Braking time simulation model was created. Figure 11 shows the
assumed geometry of the simple track, with two straight-
Braking performance relates to the deceleration of a line segments and two semi-circular segments. The
vehicle. This, like cornering velocity, is a function of tire primary objective of the lap-time simulation was to
friction. The two opposing forces during a braking event determine the changes in the lap performance due to
changes in the aerodynamics.
 Downloaded from SAE International by University of Minnesota, Tuesday, July 31, 2018

A constant cornering speed Vturn was assumed for the achieved for a given cornering velocity. It is seen that,
cornering condition. This cornering speed was assumed as can be expected, airfoils with higher Clmax (airfoil C in
to be the maximum-possible speed from Eq. 7 with the this example) are better than those with lower Clmax.
down force available from the airfoil/wing configuration
under consideration.
Atmospheric density, ρ = 1.2256 kg/m3
Length, F Mass, m = 272.3 kg
Radius Coeff. of friction, µ = 1.1
Front wing location, xf = 0.86 m
Rear wing location, xr = 0.96 m
Acceleration with no wing, a1 = 7.66 m/s2

Figure 11: Assumed track geometry for lap-time Table 2: Assumed values for parameters used in the
simulation. performance simulation.

At the start of the straight segment, the car is assumed

to accelerate from a velocity of Vturn to a maximum
speed of Vmax, and then decelerate from Vmax back to
Vturn at the start of the next corner. For these
acceleration and deceleration conditions Eqs. 10 and 13
were used. It must be noted that Vmax is not known a
priori and needs to be solved to satisfy the requirement
that the length of the straight-line segment is equal to
that assumed for the track geometry under
consideration. This solution was done using the zero-
finding function fzero in Matlab by assuming Vmax to be a
variable.

Using this approach, the time for a single lap can be

computed by integrating the times for the corners and
the straight-line segments. Thus, the approach allows
the computation of the lap times for different airfoil/wing
configurations.

RESULTS
For the results presented in this section, the assumed
values for the various parameters are shown in Table 2.
The results are first presented for the racecar
performance with the three airfoils during cornering,
straight-line braking, and straight-line acceleration
conditions. The effect on lap times for different track
geometries is then presented for the single-wing
configuration followed by the dual-wing configuration.
Figure 12: Variation of corner speed with wing
incidence for the three airfoils.
Straight-Line Braking
The solution for the straight-line braking distance, shown
in Eq. 10 is shown in Fig. 13 for deceleration from 20 to
10 m/s. This figure also shows that airfoils with higher
Clmax are preferred.

CAR PERFORMANCE FOR THE SINGLE-WING CASE Straight-Line Acceleration

Constant-Radius Cornering Assuming a constant value of 7.66 m/s2 for the

The maximum cornering velocity from Eq. 7 is presented
in Figure 12 and shown as a function of wing incidence
for the three airfoils A, B, and C. Because the cornering
performance is limited by the available traction and not
by the available engine power, the cornering
performance is not affected by the increase in drag.
This figure shows that it is possible to achieve a higher
velocity with greater wing incidence. In other words, the
downforce allows a higher velocity to be achieved in a
corner of a given radius or a smaller corner radius to be
acceleration of the car without the wing, the time
required for acceleration can be found. This
acceleration time for 10 to 20 m/s is shown in figure 14.
Acceleration time increases with increasing wing
incidence as a result of the additional drag force of the
wing. This plot demonstrates the compromise involved
in the use of wing downforce. Braking and cornering
performance improve with increasing CL when compared
to a vehicle with no wing. On the other hand,
acceleration performance, where traction is not the
limiting factor, will decrease due to the additional wing
drag.
 Downloaded from SAE International by University of Minnesota, Tuesday, July 31, 2018
Figure 13: Variation of braking distance with wing
incidence for the three airfoils.
Figure 14: Acceleration time as a function of wing
incidence for the three airfoils.
Lap-time simulation (single-wing case)
The lap-time simulation approach described earlier has
been used to study the effect of varying the wing
incidence with the airfoil C for different track geometries.
The different track geometries all have the same radius
for the corners (35m), but different lengths for the
straight segments. Figures 15-18 show the results for
straight-line lengths of 0, 175, 280, and 315m
respectively. In all of these figures, the total track time
for one lap has been plotted as a function of the car CL,
defined as the car downforce nondimensionalized by the
reference area, Sref.
For the track with zero-length straight in Fig. 15, it is
seen that higher lift coefficients result in a decrease in
the lap times. This result agrees well with the increase in
corner speed with CL as seen from Fig. 12. Because the
cornering performance is limited solely by the available
traction and not by the available engine power, the
performance of the car in a circular track is not affected
by the drag of the wings. The best lap-time performance
for this track is achieved at the maximum possible CL
which corresponds to the CLmax.
Figure 15: Single-wing lap time on a track with 35-m
radius and 0-m straight length.
poststall
stall
Figure 16: Single-wing lap time on a track with 35-m
radius and 175-m straight length.
As the length of the straight-line segment increases,
there is a tradeoff between benefits to the cornering and
braking performance with increasing CL and the loss in
acceleration due to the increased drag associated with
higher CL. To compare the benefits to the car
performance due to the downforce and the loss in the
performance due to the added drag, Figs. 16—18
present not only the total track time as a function of car
CL, but also the following additional information: (a) the
track time for the car without a wing, indicated by a
 Downloaded from SAE International by University of Minnesota, Tuesday, July 31, 2018
marker corresponding to zero CL, (b) the track time as a
function of CL if the induced drag was assumed zero,
and (c) the track-time curve assuming that both the
induced and profile drag were zero.
poststall
stall
Figure 17: Single-wing lap time on a track with 35-m
radius and 280-m straight length.
Figure 18: Single-wing lap time on a track with 35-m
radius and 315-m straight length.
It can be clearly seen that among the two contributions
to wing drag, the induced drag contribution is by far
larger than that due to profile drag. The induced drag
increases with increasing CL. Furthermore, on tracks
with large straight-segment lengths the car spends a
greater percentage of the lap time during the straight-
line acceleration. Because of these reasons, for tracks
with large straight segments (Fig. 18), the best car lap-
time performance occurs at a CL that is less than the
maximum achievable CL. When operating at CL higher
than this optimum value, the additional performance
improvement with downforce increase is negated by the
loss due to the increase in induced drag.
CAR PERFORMANCE FOR THE DUAL-WING CASE
The performance of the car with the dual-wing setup is
studied with airfoil C for the rear wing and airfoil A for the
front wing in ground effect. Because of the small range
of usable angles of attack for the airfoil when operating
in ground effect, the available range of car CL for the
dual-wing case is smaller than for the single-wing case.
Additionally, the total induced drag is less than that for
the corresponding single-wing case because the
downforce is split between two wings of the same span.
Lap-time simulation (dual-wing case)
Figures 19—22 show the lap-time performance
predictions for the dual-wing case on the four track
geometries. As with the single-wing case, the lap time
decreases with increasing CL for the circular track. As
the distance of the straight segment increases, the effect
of the induced-drag increase becomes more noticeable.
However, this drag increase is less than that seen for
the single-wing cases. In general, the dual-wing
performance is similar to the corresponding single-wing
performance. However, the dual-wing setup corresponds
to a configuration that is trimmed for good handling,
whereas the single-wing configuration did not take the
fore-and-aft balance of the car into consideration.
Figure 19: Dual-wing lap time on a track with 35-m
radius and 0-m straight length.
 Downloaded from SAE International by University of Minnesota, Tuesday, July 31, 2018
Figure 20: Dual-wing lap time on a track with 35-m
radius and 175-m straight length.
Figure 21: Dual-wing lap time on a track with 35-m
radius and 280-m straight length.
Figure 22: Dual-wing lap time on a track with 35-m
radius and 315-m straight length.
CONCLUSIONS
This paper presents results for understanding in detail
the effects of wing aerodynamics on various racecar
performance parameters. The study was performed by
coupling methods for design and analysis of airfoils and
wings with performance-simulation models for the car.
Three airfoils with systematic changes to the camber
were considered. Three performance parameters were
studied in detail to determine their individual
contributions to the total lap-time performance. The
results are presented both for a single-wing
configuration in which fore-and-aft balance of the car is
ignored and a dual-wing configuration in which the
important fore-and-aft balance is taken into
consideration. The results show that higher-lift airfoils
are preferred for the cornering and braking conditions.
The higher-lift airfoils, however, result in a reduced
acceleration performance. This tradeoff in wing design is
reflected in the lap-time performance depending on the
track geometry. For tracks that have more cornering and
less straight-line segments, the best car performance is
achieved at the highest possible downforce. For tracks
with larger percentage of straight segments, the
induced-drag effects are noticeable, and detract from the
benefits due to the downforce.
The results for the dual-wing setup show that the car can
be balanced only in a small range of lift coefficients. The
performance is similar to a comparable single-wing
configuration. In all cases, the effect of the airfoil profile
drag is negligible when compared to the effect of
induced drag. This result points out that in the design of
airfoils for race car wings, the focus needs to be
primarily on achieving high maximum lift even if that
objective results in high profile drag. The attempts at
reducing drag need to be spent on minimizing the
induced drag.
While the results are presented for the Formula SAE car
used as the example vehicle in this paper, the methods
and much of the discussion are valid for a larger range
of racing vehicles with wings. The paper also provides
an approach that can be used in the selection of the
most appropriate airfoils for racecar wings, and can
reduce the design cycle time for race vehicles as well as
the effort required to tune the wings for different tracks.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors wish to thank Mark Drela for the XFOIL and
MSES codes used in this work.
REFERENCES
1. Milliken W.F. and Milliken D.L, Race Car Vehicle
Dynamics. SAE International, Warrendale, PA,
1996.
2. Katz, J., Race Car Aerodynamics. Robert Bently
Publishers, Cambridge, MA, 1995.
 Downloaded from SAE International by University of Minnesota, Tuesday, July 31, 2018

3. Gopalarathnam, A., Selig, M.S., and Hsu, F.,

“Design of High-Lift Airfoils for Low Aspect Ratio
Wings with Endplates,” AIAA Paper 97-2232, June
1997.

4. Zerihan, J and Zhang, X., “A Single Element Wing in

Ground Effect; Comparisons of Experiments and
Computation,” AIAA Paper 2001-0423, January
2001.

5. Case, D.E., ‘Formula SAE – “Competition History

1981 – 1996,” SAE Paper 962509, 1996.

6. Selig, M. S., Gopalarathnam, A., Giguere, P., and

Lyon, C. A., “Systematic Airfoil Design Studies at
Low Reynolds Numbers,” in Fixed and Flapping
Wing Aerodynamics for Micro Air Vehicle
Applications, Mueller, T. J., editor, Progress in
Aeronautics and Astronautics, vol. 195, AIAA, pp.
143-167.

7. Selig, M. S., and Maughmer, M. D., “Generalized

Multipoint Inverse Airfoil Design,” AIAA Journal, Vol.
30, No. 11, Nov. 1992, pp. 2618-2625.

8. Drela, M., “XFOIL: An Analysis and Design System

for Low Reynolds Number Airfoils,” in Low Reynolds
Number Aerodynamics, Mueller, T. J., editor,
Lecture Notes in Engineering, Vol. 54, Springer-
Verlag, New York, June 1989, pp. 1-12.

9. Katz, J. and Dykstra, L., “Effect of Wing/Body

Interaction on the Aerodynamics of Two Generic
Racing Cars,” SAE Paper 920349, 1992.

10. Drela, M., “Newton Solution of Coupled

Viscous/Inviscid Multielement Airfoil Flows,” AIAA
Paper 90-1470, June 1990.

CONTACT
*
Graduate Research Assistant, Box 7910,
njmckay@eos.ncsu.edu, Student Member, SAE.
†
Assistant Professor, Box 7910, ashok_g@ncsu.edu,
(919) 515-5669.