I snuck some time in after work today to toss in a 3D model of a 914 into Solidworks flow simulation. Shhh... don't tell the boss!

I found the model on Grabcad from Eric O. If he's here.. Thanks! I figured you guys would love to see this so here's a plot of the velocity streamlines. The lines show the flow path, and the color shows how fast the air is going.

Click to view attachment

Better yet, here's an video showing the flow in 3D. If you've got the band width, watch in HD 1080p

URL Link: https://youtu.be/-1dZOuYtUiU


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1dZOuYtUiU


In order to finish the simulation without running overnight, I had to limit how fine the mesh was which means that the simulation is not 100% accurate. The model is pretty basic too and not completely accurate. If by chance anyone has a more accurate model, I'd love to rerun the simulation with a finer mesh and better model.

That’s really cool. Thanks for sharing.

Excellent thanks!

Very cool. Thank you for sharing this.

Post of the month! :Qarl:edit : of the year ! Thanks

I remember reading in an old Panorama that said the 914 with the lights down had the best CD of any production Porsche up until the 924 (I think). I'll have to see if I can find that article.

Thanks guys. I looked up the Cd value once and remember thinking it was low. @IronHillRestorations I'd like to read the article especially if its got any real world values for comparisons

Can you add the flaps at the bottom of the firewall?

Mo Aero stuff:

@JeffBowlsby Sweet documents. Thanks!

@IronHillRestorations Sure. If I get some more free time I'll add them in. I don't know what they look like though. My car came partially disassembled. Got any pics?

Any way to add a front spoiler and rear spoiler to the model? Sure would be neat to see how the flow is on Kermee at 100-140mph....
Here's a few pics...Oh, and ground clearance at front is 4 inches....

Click to view attachment Click to view attachment

Thanks for sharing!!

Can you show it at 180mph? Curious to what happens at the rear end.

Thanks for sharing. Great video. Would interesting to see where the heat escapes.

These
https://900designs-container.zoeysite.com/f...air-deflector-1

The only problem is that your model will treat the engine area as a flat surface, not a cavity.

And at 130mph.

Thanks for posting this-super cool

Thanks for taking the time to run this...very cool and interesting info.

More important than flaps are likely spinning wheels to be honest. Lots change when wheels move and the ground moves in my experience.

SW started using a version of Mentor FloEFD-does it let you set turbulence models and all of that fun stuff? It used to be limited to a heavily damped k-e model to solve fast.

Neat stuff!

Nice job with the CFD work.

Looks like you'll have a new full time job as the 914 aero guy!

Looks like a Ducktail would help breakup that low pressure area in the rear of the car

Thanks for the link. Your right though. The model I used is very basic and doesnt have an engine cavity, which makes a huge difference if you wanted to look at pressure plots (downforce) or heat transfer.

Solidworks is perfectly capable of doing both of those and I've got a suspicion that the engine cavity of the car acts like a baloon at high speeds. When I get the chance, I'll try to put in a basic engine cavity and see if there's a vw engine on Grabcad to put in there. That should give better results when looking at the rear of the car @Andyrew . I'll also run at higher speeds.

@wndsrfr Very, very nice car. I'll test out a variety of front and rear spoilers at some point. Thanks for the ride height info.

Long term goal is to get a better computer set up at home so I'm not limited to using my work computer after hours. That would give me a bigger time window.

I have Solidworks at home on a decent comp. Wasn't intuitive to use so haven't gotten very far with playing with it, but I could probably crunch data with it overnight if I had files and a how-to.

Those are good suggestions. I'm still in my infancy when it comes to CFD analysis. Figuring out how to make the wheels spin sounds involved.

I dont know what turbulence models Solidworks used but I didnt dive in too deep when setting up the analysis. I used the wizard and let it choose based on my inputs. However, it was able to solve 108,000 cells in 20 mins using 8 cores, which is very fast compared to the Star CCM software I've used.