Aerodynamic approach on enhancing the downforce in a self-powered Electric Vehicle

With the world moving towards sustainable energy, the importance of Electric Vehicles (EV) has gained huge momentum. However merely moving with a rechargeable structure has put forward many challenges and the quest for a better alternative to power the vehicle electrically remains constant. Researchers across the world are looking forward to how the vehicle can be made self-powered. The study aims at proposing a self-powered and aerodynamically robust design of an EV. The enhanced downforce and reduced air drag were analyzed using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). The vehicle design is proposed using the principles of bio-mimicry following the standard procedures of transportation design. Speedform (a primitive form of the vehicle design generally considered as the visual vocabulary for transportation design) was developed computationally using AutoCAD. To enhance the Aerodynamic robustness of the vehicle, unique Aerodynamic Spoilers inspired by Venturi tunnels of Le Mans Sportscar and the shape of teardrop (which is considered as the most aerodynamically efficient shape, for speeds lower than the speed of sound) were proposed. At the end of the spoilers, a setup analogous to a windmill was arranged which helped in generating the required power for the vehicle using the air exiting the tunnel. The final external design of the vehicle was modelled on AutoDesk MAYA. For the purpose of analysis, a three-dimensional (3D) CFD study was undertaken on ANSYS Fluent using the realizable k-e turbulence model. Drag coefficient, lift coefficient, and velocity contours were studied in order to examine the overall aerodynamic effect of the proposed spoilers on vehicle aerodynamic performance and optimize spoiler geometry.