Last year, eRacing Magazine was privileged enough to be able to send one of our writers to Internect’s conference on Advanced Automotive Aerodynamics. To say the experience was of enormous benefit is an understatement given the engineering student now works for a leading global manufacturer in the commercial and sporting automotive world.
Contractual arrangements mean we can’t show you their face, but we can reveal the benefits they gained from what is fast becoming a must attend event for engineers and department heads in the automotive industry.
Introductions...
Originally I was a bit sceptical of how relevant this conference would be to motorsport and by virtue of that - my studies as there were only two F1 speakers (Sauber + Toro Rosso) across the whole two days. However, it came as a welcome surprise to hear that not only are these big OEM's using the same ideas, methods and processes, but they are utilising the same software packages as motorsport and also investing millions in aerodynamics to chase performance.
While there is some argument that OEM's primary concern, especially nowadays, is fuel consumption and emissions, whereas Motorsport aerodynamics is about maximising downforce. Regardless, I found out at the conference that both industries are still chasing efficiency and was highly interesting to learn how automotive engineers are using aerodynamics to solve their problems on a much larger scale. To be honest, by the end of the weekend I learnt a lot more from the other presentations than the Formula One counterparts!