Sterna Racing is a dedicated team of five students, aged 16-17, competing in F1 in Schools, the world’s largest STEM competition. STEM Racing, inspired by the Formula 1 World Championship, challenges high school students to operate as their own F1 team, encompassing everything from designing high-performance miniature race cars to managing sponsorship and marketing with professional precision.
The team began competing in 2023, securing 3rd place in Scotland and earning the Best Pit Display Award, which qualified them for the 2023-24 UK National Finals. Building on this success, they achieved an impressive 2nd place overall at the Nationals, once again winning the Best Pit Display Award, outperforming 30 teams at the event and over 5,000 competitors across the UK. The team’s school has a strong history in the STEM Racing competition, with three teams over the years qualifying for the World Finals, further cementing its legacy in the competition.
Design Challenges
Throughout the project, the team was tasked with designing and creating a model F1 car, incorporating aerodynamic development within the competition’s regulations. This process was meticulously documented in a comprehensive ten-page portfolio, which included a requirement to demonstrate the use of CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) software in the car’s development. A significant portion of the design was informed by CFD analysis, while additional engineering challenges, such as the development of custom wheel support systems, required the use of FEA (Finite Element Analysis) to ensure structural integrity under stress.
We chose SimScale as the ideal software due to its intuitive interface, which made it easy to learn and implement within our tight time constraints. It also provided invaluable data, including force coefficient graphs and detailed cross-sectional pressure images, enabling us to refine our design with precision.
– Team Statement
How SimScale Simulations Led to Success
The team began setting up the simulation by importing half of the full model to optimize meshing speed and calculation efficiency. A flow body was then created with dimensions closely matching those of the track. By utilizing a combination of cutting planes, particle traces, and force coefficient graphs, the team effectively refined key components of the car, including the end pods and front wing.
Throughout the project, challenges were minimal; however, a significant setback occurred due to a meshing issue. Upon investigation, the team identified the problem as a modeling error, which was quickly resolved using a few additional modeling commands, allowing the development process to continue smoothly.
The simulations performed exceptionally well, with each run completing meshing and computations within just a few minutes. The initial simulations took approximately 25 minutes to run, utilizing around 20 core hours. Overall, the software operated smoothly, enabling quick adjustments to both the model and the simulation settings and streamlining the development process.
SimScale has significantly reduced our development time. Its cloud-based platform allowed us to run simulations on school computers despite software and internet restrictions. Having simulations open alongside our design work improved efficiency, and moving forward, we plan to integrate SimScale into all prototypes to accelerate design iterations before finalizing race-ready models.
– Team Statement
