CFD: How a dynamic design tool has grown in F1 importance

By:

GP Racing

Mar 10, 2023, 10:21 AM

Formula 1's chief technical officer PAT SYMONDS explains exactly what Computation Fluid Dynamics is, why it has developed massively in recent years and what it might be capable of doing in the future.

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There are many terms in motorsport bandied about by many people with only a vague understanding of what they really mean. One such is CFD or Computational Fluid Dynamics. In a way the very term is autological in that it describes itself but, equally, three simple words cannot do justice to an immensely complex subject.

Any physical system can, in theory, have its various states calculated mathematically. Sometimes this is easy, such as the case of an object falling in a vacuum. Sometimes it’s more difficult, such as calculating the stress of an object of complex shape under loading. When it comes to predicting the flow of air over and around an F1 car, the problem becomes immensely complex but not insoluble to a reasonable degree of accuracy.