[MVRC] Mantium Virtual Racecar Challenge 2018

[CAEdevice]

I would rather things get postponed until the software is working as desired.
Does the band-aid fix from BlueCFD have any detrimental effects (has this been tested?) or is it just a brute-force method of getting things working?

At the moment the software works almost perfectly, with only two small issues:

1. The center of rake rotation is not on the front wheels axis. I think that we just need a picture in order to be sure where it is...
2. Total Cd and Cl are not shown in the HTML report, but they are still present in the "log" of the simulation, so it is quite easy to find them

[LVDH]

I would rather things get postponed until the software is working as desired.
Does the band-aid fix from BlueCFD have any detrimental effects (has this been tested?) or is it just a brute-force method of getting things working?

No, the blueCFD software did not change at all. At some point they will fix the bug which is in it. They suggested a way for me to circumvent it. Technically for all of you who know OpenFOAM, instead of using a functionObject called fileUpdate, I now use systemCall. Strangely this creates a new funny issue which would be easy to fix but I did not bother. The update which switches to second order numerical schemes now happens one iteration later.

i think freezing what we have now for the season is the way to go.. although it is not working as intended it is working the same for everyone. These things that get picked up from now should be looked at for the future.
If there is a fundamental floor then by all means fix it. the rake settings is giving us options and it does make a difference i think it should stay as it is.

You are right, it affects everyone the same. It just bothers me a lot. But rule changes have always happened in MVRC usually because someone found unintended loopholes in the rules.
For this year I can imagine that a lot could change for the last race at Pikes Peak. The cars there should look very wild and have a good and well deserved farewell to the Le Mans type cars in this championship.

[LVDH]

At the moment the software works almost perfectly, with only two small issues:

1. ...
2. Total Cd and Cl are not shown in the HTML report, but they are still present in the "log" of the simulation, so it is quite easy to find them

I can finally confirm this issue. I will try to fix it today.

[rjsa]

I have been working on an entirely new car using Fusion360 but it won't make race one. Neither two I think. I just don't have the time, couldn't even get the renderings done for registering.

Let's see later on the year.

[CAEdevice]

I have been working on an entirely new car using Fusion360 but it won't make race one. Neither two I think. I just don't have the time, couldn't even get the renderings done for registering.

Let's see later on the year.

I am sorry about that! Why don't you download the intro car (that is compliant with the top class rulebook) and run a couple of simulations, just to have the right balance, and take some points?

It is about the same I am doing: the rake option made possibile a completely new design, but I could not complete it, so I am running the 2017 car with some improvements for the new rules taht is 75% identical to the intro car.

[LVDH]

I have been working on an entirely new car using Fusion360 but it won't make race one. Neither two I think. I just don't have the time, couldn't even get the renderings done for registering.

Let's see later on the year.

Yeah, run some car and collect some points for the championship. I think the chance for something like last years main prize is more than worth it.

[CAEdevice]

Hello, I apologize if I have not officially announced the prize for MVRC2018.

I confirm that CAEdevice will still sponsor the award and that there will be 3 prizes:

1) Absolute winner
2) Winner of the "intro class" (I would prefer that "intro class" cars used the "middle body" component without modifying it, but I am still thinking about this point)
3) Best rookie (for those who have never participated before)

As always, the CAEdevice team is excluded from the awards.

Last year I have had a lot of difficulties with the shipping of the prizes, so I'm oriented towards something different, which could be the classic subscription to a magazine (where I hope we will read about us) or something related to cryptovalues (Bitcoin and similar stuff). The value of the award will still be similar to that of previous years.

We will talk about it on my return in about 2 weeks.

[LVDH]

At the moment the software works almost perfectly, with only two small issues:

1. ...
2. Total Cd and Cl are not shown in the HTML report, but they are still present in the "log" of the simulation, so it is quite easy to find them

I can finally confirm this issue. I will try to fix it today.

Ok, this was a hard to understand fix but pretty much only involved removing about 4 characters, so not even an entire line.
The issue only affected Windows users with the latest blueCFD version. As it was so small, I was too lazy to introduce a new version number and so on. So if you are using Windows and missing the total forces, just once more download the 2018-07c version.

My plans for the next updates are mostly about improving the general software speed. At some point, some import bloated everything up very much. This does not only affect the file size of the software but also the startup time a lot. I have figured out how to analyze the culprit and have seen by just looking at the code how to improve other parts. This will happen very soon but will only be available for the next race. I think the software is now good for race one and I do not like changing too much close to a race.

The rotation of the HX around more than one axis is a different question but I want to tackle it. Right now an optimization figures out how it is oriented around the y-axis. Adding another axis turns the scalar optimization into one with more than one variable which can increase computation times a lot. Trust me it is a lot as soon as the HX stl file contains a few more nodes than needed (If I remember correctly it was a O^n problem).
Maybe someone of you can find a super efficient algorithm to find an oriented bounding box.

[CAEdevice]

My plans for the next updates are mostly about improving the general software speed.

Are you sure? I tryed both the GUI and the command line and I am very happy with the speed.

The rotation of the HX around more than one axis is a different question but I want to tackle it. Right now an optimization figures out how it is oriented around the y-axis. Adding another axis turns the scalar optimization into one with more than one variable which can increase computation times a lot. Trust me it is a lot as soon as the HX stl file contains a few more nodes than needed (If I remember correctly it was a O^n problem).
Maybe someone of you can find a super efficient algorithm to find an oriented bounding box.

Would it be possibile to just take three random point on the HX monitoring surface and to compute the versor?
That is what I do with SWX (then I have to manually edit the option files of OF, but I hope to do it automatically in the future...).

Alternatively, just for the MVRC simulations, I think that it would be enough, only for the top class, to allow the users to provide a txt file with the e1,e2,e3 vector of the HX, to be compiled optionally.

[CAEdevice]

Before leaving for my holidays, I show you an image of the new beast ... this time without turning off the lights!
I can not wait to see your creatures! See you soon

[RicME85]

Got an issue with the MVRC website/login/getting software.
Have gone to the challenge site to download the latest version of MantiumFlow and clicked on the Log On button to only get this [customer-account-home /]
There were no fields to enter login details. As I cant log in there is no link to download the software.

[CAEdevice]

Got an issue with the MVRC website/login/getting software.
Have gone to the challenge site to download the latest version of MantiumFlow and clicked on the Log On button to only get this [customer-account-home /]
There were no fields to enter login details. As I cant log in there is no link to download the software.

Yes, I think there is a bug with the login page.

If you go in the Q&A section you can login (at the bottom of the page). If you select "remember me" than you can reload the "files" page and the download will be available.

[RicME85]

Thank you sir.

[etsmc]

anyone having issues of slower simulations with the new version of Mantiumflow 2018.07c?
each time iteration seems to have increased, on the fast setting they are now taking around 24 seconds where previously they were in the region of 8 seconds..

[Team_Bart]

anyone having issues of slower simulations with the new version of Mantiumflow 2018.07c?
each time iteration seems to have increased, on the fast setting they are now taking around 24 seconds where previously they were in the region of 8 seconds..

I think it was slower for me too (first a fast simulation was about 8 hours, now it was about 14, while I added some cores), but since it was only my second run with this settings I thought it was due to the added elements in my model.