Literature on aerodynamic performance

[thepowerofnone]

Ok, so I am in need of some knowledge from the "golden oldies" on the forum: I am searching for a textbook, or textbooks, relating to the topic of aerodynamic performance specifically in the context of race cars, for a university design project. I need to be clear here, I am not talking about a book on CFD applications on race cars or how to analyse the flow, assume that that information is already prescribed to me; I am looking for a source of information regarding the physical models for the effect of aerodynamics on telemetry and vehicle performance, and if it exists, some model of the dynamic behaviour of the flow under braking, cornering etc. Think Milliken Race Car Vehicle Dynamics but more modern, less accessible, and with an emphasis on the aerodynamic considerations.

I realise that what I am looking for almost certainly does not exist as a book, and at best as a rough series of research papers, but I figure if anyone is going to know it will be you guys and it beats trawling through online book reviews written by people with insufficient background knowledge to fully appreciate the textbook.

Any tips would be greatly appreciated!

[Pierce89]

Go check the site for SAE papers.

[flynfrog]

The Monash FSAE paper might be a starting point for you. Ill see if I can come across it.

Also check the books sticky in one of the subfourms.

[Tim11RS]

Check this book: Simon McBeath. Competition Car Aerodynamics: A Practical Handbook, 2nd Edition
It has really clear explanations and great illustrations and usefull graphs. I have no idea if a free version can be found online.

I also have the paper from Monash and also one on the development of an undertray by Global Formula Racing FSAE team and some other usefull reading material.
I have no idea how to share them via the forum, so if you PM me with your e-mail adress I can send them to you.

Or somebody tells me how the share them to everybody

[NoDivergence]

Lol, for the research paper i'm writing for my class, I scanned the whole book
Katz is very good too and extremely easy to find online.

Joseph Katz Racecar Aerodynamics

[Lycoming]

Katz has a good table of drag coefficients for a wide range of vehicles, among other goodies.

[thepowerofnone]

Thanks all for the replies so far. I am aware of Katz but thought that it was more "this is how a wing works"-ish than it actually seems to be - I have his book on Low Speed Aerodynamics which is excellent, however looking into it a bit more it would seem you guys are right and Katz actually has a lot of experienced-based plots and relations which would be helpful to me. I'll try and pick up a copy of that.

After it was mentioned I went looking for the Monash FSAE paper and found this lovely little collection of papers http://aero.calpolysae.org/techarticles.htm . I believe the paper you are referring to Tim11RS is Numerical, Wind Tunnel, and on Track Study of Monash 2002 Aero Package, or an I mistaken. I will have a look at the McBeath book, thanks very much for that too.

[flynfrog]

that sounds about right on the monash paper.

Not sure if you were aware but your user name mimics a solar car team Xof1 or power of 1
http://www.xof1.com/

[thepowerofnone]

No relation, I needed a username one time and the book "The Power of One" was on my desk at the time, but I didn't want a direct copy to threw an N in there. Seems like a cool project through, I wonder if they ever ran in the Australian solar power competition, although my guess is no as it seems to be optimised for endurance rather than speed.

[shelly]

These two papers seem interesting:

http://papers.sae.org/2008-01-0657/

http://arc.aiaa.org/doi/abs/10.2514/6.1989-1498

[thepowerofnone]

That's awesome, exactly what I was looking for, outstanding find thank you so much. I'll have a look in the uni publications room and save myself the fee!

[Greg Locock]

"Seems like a cool project through, I wonder if they ever ran in the Australian solar power competition, although my guess is no as it seems to be optimised for endurance rather than speed.:"

Some confusion there, wiki says yes, the results say no, and their blog doesn't seem to mention it, although they don't seem to have a search function.