Simulating High-Speed Passing Maneuvers by Formula 1 Race Cars

Fans of Formula racing enjoy the thrill of high-speed lead changes; however, passing doesn't happen very often because the wake of the lead car affects the performance of the trailing car, causing it to lose some of its “downforce.” Decreased downforce leads to decreased road grip; with less grip, the driver has less control and fewer opportunities to pass. The engineers at Swift Engineering, designers of Formula racecars, are studying the problem with unsteady state computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and the help of a Cray XE6™ supercomputer, so they can build cars that don’t create grip-reducing wakes.