Student M.Eng Project

hi,
im new to this forum, and a member of locostbuilders (im building a se7en type car).
for my Final year m.eng project (worth 60 credits towards my degree) im a bit stuck for ideas. it has to be a fairly large project, but as mu uni is so stingy, i have hardly any money to play with.
im doing aerospace manufacturing engineering, but kind of digressing from the whole aero side of things.
ive considered projects on:
* boundary layer control to inprove handling of cars
* developing a bodyshell, testing it (FEA etc) and rapid prototyping etc...
* studying aquaplaning - prevention etc..
* improving the torsion characteristics of a F1 steering column

if anyone else has any other ideas, no matter what they are - cars, manufacturing, CAD, FEA, aerospace - anything, pleasde let me know

thanks
Tom

If you go with aerodynamics of automobiles you won’t be straying to far from aerospace engineering. The primary difference between an automobile and an aircraft is that the aircraft travels through a single median (air), where as the automobile travels through a fluid (air) and on a solid (pavement).

Studying “* boundary layer control to improve handling of cars” could be very expensive depending on your resources. Usually vehicle aerodynamic testing is done in a wind tunnel and if you school doesn’t have one you are looking at costly testing. If your school has CFD software available this could be substituted for wind tunnel testing. However, if the software is not available it is very expensive for short term use.

One low cost solution that may or may not work for you application is to try out your design on your own car. Place little streamers (paper, yarn, etc) around the area of interest. If done correctly you should be able to get a good idea of the flow streamlines. If possible film the area for later analysis.

Other ideas:

- Ground Effect design: Look at how underbody down force is generated at various ride heights. Maximize ride height for safety, regulations, and comfort.

- Rear End Separation / Vortices Generation (Good and Bad): How to improve flow separation around the vehicle. Minimize front and rear pressure differential to minimize drag coefficient.

- Exhaust Port Positioning: Read somewhere about expelling the exhaust gas to low pressure area around the vehicle. Benefit was that the low pressure reduced the exhaust back pressure, and the exhaust gas helped to increase the pressure (reducing drag).

Those are just few ideas you might find interesting though the possibilities are endless and that is just vehicle aerodynamics.

Thanks very much for that info alastor - its really helpful to see things from another perspective. ill follow up all the leads you have given me, and see what information i can come up with.
my uni has a low and high speed wind tunnel (low is <30ms^-1, and high is <60ms^-1) and also a supersonic tunnel (which i dont think ill be needing for my type of project!!)
we also have some FEA software - Ideas, fluent, starCD and CFX - CFX is the one i am using at the moment.

another idea i have thought of is developing a bodyshell for my kit-car, but it would have to be a scaled down one, to keep the costs down.

our low speed tunnel in uni is about 3x3 m, and the high speed is about 1.5x1.5m so that limits the scale of the project, although airbus (filton) is just across the road (literally 5min walk away) so with a bit of gentle persuasion, i may be able to use some of thier facilities.
thanks again for your help
tom

your idea of developing a bodyshell for your kit-car could work. you could try to develop a bodyshell that provides racecar handling through aerodynamics, an example of this is the newly developed Joss supercar from australia.