UConn Formula SAE / Fall 2025

Front wing canards

Airfoil selection and full-car CFD analysis of front-wing canards.

Role: Two-person new-member project
Focus: Aerodynamics · CFD

Objective

Redirect airflow outward ahead of the front tires and evaluate the effect on the complete vehicle.

My contribution

In a two-person new-member team, I researched airfoils, modeled canard placements, prepared the model in ANSYS Discovery, and evaluated flow in Fluent. We compared velocity vectors, velocity contours, pressure contours, and full-car results.

Results

The final simulated configuration reduced overall vehicle drag by 13%. The project was one of two completed out of sixteen assigned new-member projects. The drag result is from CFD, rather than an on-track measurement.

Project documentation

01Velocity vectors used to evaluate outwash ahead of the front tires.

02Velocity contours showing the effect of canard placement on the surrounding flow field.

03Pressure distribution over the canard and adjacent front-wing surfaces.

04Full-car CFD comparison. The final configuration showed a 13% reduction in overall vehicle drag in simulation.

← All projects