Front Aerodynamic Drag Reduction in Electric Vehicles

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Front Aerodynamic Drag Reduction in Electric
Vehicles

• By Student 1 Student 2

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Dedicated to Robin
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Introduction

• Terry Piper owns and races an HP electric
  vehicle.
• Race to drive as far as possible in one hour.
• Most significant improvements possible from
  aerodynamic drag reduction.

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Question

• How can the design of Terry Pipers electric
  vehicle shell be improved to reduce the
  aerodynamic drag the vehicle experiences?

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Methods

• Modeled three shell designs in miniature.

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Methods

• Measured force of wind on each model using wind
  tunnel and force sensor.

Direction of airflow
Dynamics Cart
Force Sensor
Pre-testing setup in the wind tunnel
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Results

• Force sensor was connected to laptop running
  LoggerPro
• Force readings recorded

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Results

• Used LoggerPro to determine mean force
• Organized and averaged data in table

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Rectangular Design

• Much turbulence created

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Current Design

• Some turbulence created

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Proposed Design

• Minimal turbulence created

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Conclusions

• Rectangular control model verified experiments
  validity
• Proposed shell design exhibits better aerodynamic
  efficiency than current design

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Connections

• The proposed shell design may be implemented on
  Terry Pipers electric vehicle
• Enhanced performance

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Next Steps

• Real-world testing and implementation
• Further design improvement

Our thanks to Terry Piper at HP, Mr. Baldwin for
his help on the wind tunnel, Mr. Kirsch for
emotional support (i.e. repeated cry-me-a-river
comments), and Mr. Moses for his help with the
clay modeling.