The third development session focused on the car’s aerodynamic performance, which was tested by running the vehicle at maximum speed on the jumps.
“The bodywork of the WRC must entirely cover that of the original model and the maximum width is set at 1875mm,” said Alexis Avril, project manager for the 2017 World Rally Car. “We have a lot of freedom to design the wheel arches and bumpers. We can also create air intakes for re-cooling the rear brakes and add on a diffuser.”
The aerodynamics of a race or rally car must attain maximum down-force, minimum drag and maximum cooling. To achieve this, Citroën Racing’s engineers have adopted what is now a standard methodology.
“We started the work with the CFD calculations, which let us sift through the possible options. We collaborated with the Citroën design studio in order for the race car to resemble the characteristics of the production model. From this data, we built a model that was used in the wind tunnel. Between sessions, we carried on with the CFD calculations in enriching the data from the tests, and vice versa.”
While the aerodynamic development itself was done with CFD calculations and wind tunnel tests, the test sessions were used to assess the resilience of various components.
June 20, 2016
