Following the success of the previous two workshops (Oxford, 2019 and Berlin, 2021), we’re proud to announce that the 3rd Automotive CFD Prediction Workshop (AutoCFD 3) will be held in 2022, in person, in Barcelona, Spain.
The main objective of the 3rd Automotive CFD Prediction Workshop is to assess the predictive capability of CFD codes for road-cars geometries. Through mandatory geometry, boundary conditions and computational grids the aim is to provide practical modelling guidelines to the automotive community e.g best-practice turbulence modelling, meshing, numerical schemes. In addition we want to bring the automotive CFD community (both academia and industry) together to discuss future directions.
Computing the test-cases is not required to attend the workshop but we strongly encourage everyone to consider submitting results.
Our data policy can be found here.
Deadline for notice of participation : March 31st 2022 (extended)
Kick-off meeting (virtual): March 10th 2022 (10am CET and 6pm CET)
Deadline for data submission and abstract* : 12th August 2022
Workshop : 22nd and 23rd September 2022
* Due to the large number of registered contributors and the limited number of speaking slots during the two days, all participants who are submitting results are also asked to submit a 250 word abstract (word or PDF) describing their main findings and methodology (template here ). This will go through a light peer-review by the organising committee to select speaking slots. For those who are not selected to speak, there will be an opportunity to record a video that will be made available on the workshop website for all participants to watch during the workshop. Also all participants (having a speaking slot or not) are encouraged to product a poster (max A1), which will be placed in the break area throughout the workshop. Any questions, please contact admin@autocfd.org
CFD Engineers, Aerodynamicists, Academics from Automotive OEMs, start-ups, software companies, academics from around the world
22-23rd September 2022 - Barcelona,Spain
Please contact the workshop organisers admin@autocfd.org to sign up and any queries about the test-cases/technical issues
Case 1 is the Windsor Squareback body at 2.5 degrees yaw. In comparison to the second workshop, the test case has been simplified to be just the original no wheels model and to only require meshes with a high y+ and a wall function type boundary condition. The problem is at a Reynolds number of 3 million based on vehicle length and is within a wind-tunnel like domain. As well as force, moment and surface pressure data, there is also available non intrusive PIV measurements in the wake. The baseline grid is similar to the ‘eddy resolving’ grid from the second workshop and contains 37 million cells. The alternate grids halve and double the core cell size to give 7 million and 197 million cell grids. The grid type follows the second workshop using the ‘trimmer mesh’ and prism layer approach from Simcenter STAR-CCM+. The test description can be found here . The submission guidelines can be found here . Example data submission folder can be found here too . Grids are available in a variety of formats below.
| Case 1 - surface grids | Windsor body (STL) | Windsor body (JT) | Windsor pins (STL) | Windsor pins (JT) |
| Case 1 - Coarse Grids | CGNS | OpenFOAM | Fluent | STAR-CCM+ |
| Case 1 - Medium (baseline) grids | CGNS | OpenFOAM | Fluent | STAR-CCM+ |
| Case 1 - Fine grids | CGNS | OpenFOAM | Fluent | STAR-CCM+ |
Case 2 is the notchback version of the DrivAer. Beside the base variant of the DrivAer (Case 2a) which has been analyzed in the 2nd Automotive CFD Prediction Workshop a variant of the DrivAer (Case 2b), which features a front wheel air deflector, has been proposed for the 3rd workshop. A detailed description of both DrivAer test cases is available here and, for the base variant, from the SAE Technical Paper 2021-01-0958 by Hupertz et al.. For both DrivAer variants the workshop will focus on a closed cooling configuration with static wheels and static floor. A comprehensive set of experimental data from the Pininfarina Wind Tunnel (Courtesy of Ford) including aerodynamic forces, surface pressure, velocity profiles and 2D flowfield measurements will be available for both DrivAer variants for the correlation of CFD analyses presented at the workshop. Please see below for the meshes which were created using ANSA by BETA-CAE Systems. The mesh of the base variant (Case 2a) is identical to the “Case 2 – Wall-Function Grid” used in the 2nd workshop. The Case 2b mesh is identical to the Case 2a mesh except for the front wheel air deflector region. The post-processing excel spreadsheet to enter your results can be found here . Also the grid files for flowfield mapping in ANSA and Nastran format can be found here
| Case 2a - Surface meshes | STL | ANSA | JT | Nastran | |
| Case 2b - Surface meshes (updated 15/07/22) | STL | ANSA | JT | Nastran | |
| Case 2a - Wall-Function Grids | CGNS | OpenFOAM | Fluent | CFD++ | Mesh statistics |
| Case 2b - Wall-Function grids | CGNS | OpenFOAM | Fluent | CFD++ |
Please e-mail your submission to admin@autocfd.org including your submission ID (which you should have been e-mailed). If the file is too large for e-mail, please include a link to a file transfer service or contact admin@autocfd.org for us to arrange access to one for you.
Due to the limited number of speaking slots during the two days, all participants who are submitting results are also asked to submit a 250 word abstract (word or PDF) describing their main findings and methodology (template here ). This will go through a light peer-review by the organising committee to select speaking slots. For those who are not selected to speak, there will be an opportunity to record a video that will be made available on the workshop website for all participants to watch during the workshop. Also all participants (having a speaking slot or not) are encouraged to product a poster (max A1), which will be placed in the break area throughout the workshop. Any questions, please contact admin@autocfd.org
The final agenda can be found here .
Registration for the workshop will include refreshments and lunch on both days, and the workshop dinner held on the Thursday evening. Registration is €250 for in-person attendance and free for virtual. Note that the workshop fee does NOT include accommodation costs or travel costs, which must be booked independently. For in-person attendence please register here , for virtual please just e-mail admin@autocfd.org
Due to large number of registered contributors and the limited number of speaking slots during the two days, all participants who are submitting results are also asked to submit a 250 word abstract (word or PDF) describing their main findings and methodology (template here ). This will go through a light peer-review by the organising committee to select speaking slots. For those who are not selected to speak, there will be an opportunity to record a video that will be made available on the workshop website for all participants to watch during the workshop. Also all participants (having a speaking slot or not) are encouraged to product a poster (max A1), which will be placed in the break area throughout the workshop.
AutoCFD3 will be held as a hybrid event and due to feedback regarding in-person/virtual attendance, there will only be 55 in-person places available which will be allocated on a first come first serve basis. For those who cannot be in Barcelona, there will be a virtual component through the 2 days (which will be free of charge).
The workshop will take place at Barcelona Supercomputing Center; Plaça d'Eusebi Güell, 1-3, 08034 Barcelona
Presentations and videos (where available) from the 3rd automotive workshop are shown below. They were presented according to the agenda here .
The interactive results dashboard can also be found here.
Case 1 description and cross-plotting - Gary Page (Loughborough University) (Video-Part2)
Case 2 description and cross-plotting - Burkhard Hupertz (Ford Motor Company) (Video-Part1)
Dashboard Video Demo (Astrid Walle - Neural Concept)
Giorgio Giangasperio - Siemens Digital Industries Software (Video)
Miguel Class - TotalSim US (Video)
Astrid Walle - Neural Concept (Video)
Ivor Annetts - Bramble CFD/TotalSim UK (Video)
Tom Fahner - ActiFlow/Lightyear (Video)
Sanjin Saric - AVL (Video)
Olivier Thiry - Cadence Design Systems (Video)
Emmanuel Guilmineau - CNRS - Centrale Nantes (Video)
Jan Pischinger and Bastian Morcinkowski - FEV (Video)
Rob Winstanley and Christina Peristeri - ANSYS (Video)
Paul Norman - Ford Motor Company (Video)
Francesco Fabio Semeraro - Politecnico di Milano (Video)
CJ Doolittle - FlexCompute (Video)
Eugen Riegel - Numeric Systems GmbH (Video)
Gary Page - Loughborough University (Video)
B. Eiximeno - Barcelona Supercomputing Center (Video)
Neil Ashton - Amazon Web Services (Video)
Håkon Strandenes and Florian Schwertfirm - Kreuzinger und Manhart Turbulenz GmbH (Video)
Dr. Eric Jacuzzi and Chris Popiela - NASCAR (Video)
The 1st Automotive CFD Prediction Workshop was held on the 11-12th December 2019 in Oxford at St Anne's College. Three test-cases were studied; SAE Notchback geometry, DrivAer Fastback and DrivAer Estate vehicle which are described below Meshes were created for all cases in major grid formats i.e OpenFOAM, STAR-CCM+, Fluent, CGNS in addition to geometry and surface meshes. Participants who submitted results were allocated a 15 minute presentation slot however those who wished to present relevant material (i.e wind-tunnel campaign of the DrivAer model) without computing the test-cases were allowed to speak.
Three test-cases were available for participants to compute and submit to the workshop organisors to crossplot and summarize. Each participant who computes these cases will be given a 15 minute presentation slot to discuss their results. Full descriptions of these cases; SAE Notchback (Case 1 ), DrivAer Fastback (Case 2a ) and DrivAer Estate (Case 2b ) are available in prior links with geometry, surface meshes and volume meshes available to download the table below. Meshes in all the major mesh formats i.e OpenFOAM, STAR-CCM+, Fluent, CGNS. Participants were encouraged to run the coarse, medium and fine meshes to demonstrate mesh convergence where possible.
| Case 1 - geometry STL | STL | STEP | PRT | IGS |
| Case 1 - Grid for DES-type simulations | CGNS | STAR-CCM+ | OpenFOAM | Fluent |
| Case 1a - Grid for RANS-type simulations | CGNS | STAR-CCM+ | OpenFOAM | Fluent |
| Case 1a - BETA-CAE Participant ANSA grids - coarse | STAR-CCM+ | OpenFOAM | Fluent | |
| Case 1a - BETA-CAE Participant ANSA grids - medium | STAR-CCM+ | OpenFOAM | Fluent | CGNS |
| Case 1a - BETA-CAE Participant ANSA grids - fine | STAR-CCM+ | OpenFOAM | Fluent | CGNS |
| Case 2a - Surface meshes | STL | STEP | ||
| Case 2a - coarse Grids | CGNS | OpenFOAM | Fluent | STAR-CCM+ |
| Case 2a - medium grids | CGNS | OpenFOAM | Fluent | STAR-CCM+ |
| Case 2a - fine grids | CGNS | OpenFOAM | Fluent | STAR-CCM+ |
| Case 2b - Surface meshes | STL | STEP | ||
| Case 2b - coarse Grids | CGNS | OpenFOAM | Fluent | STAR-CCM+ |
| Case 2b - medium grids | CGNS | OpenFOAM | Fluent | STAR-CCM+ |
| Case 2b - fine grids | CGNS | OpenFOAM | Fluent | STAR-CCM+ |
Experimental data for Case 1 was made available here which has the data itself and some instructions. Please refer to the main test-case description for complete information.
Final Agenda for the workshop is here:
The organisers are grateful to Amazon Web Services for sponsoring this workshop. The organisers would also like to thank the UK Fluids Network and the Ground Vehicle Aerodynamics Special Interest Group (a EPSRC project funded under grant agreement EP/N032861/1) for early discussions on this workshop. In addition members of the UK Automotive Aerodynamics Forum have also given very useful input on the workshop.
The 2nd Automotive CFD Prediction Workshop was held on the 26th-27th August 2021 in a hybrid format - virtually and in Berlin, Germany. It was preceded by the Fourth International Conference in Numerical and Experimental Aerodynamics of Road Vehicles and Trains (AEROVEHICLES 4 ), and both the conference and workshop were held during the same week. Two test-cases were studied; Windsor body and the DrivAer Notchback (detailed underbody with no rolling road or rotating wheels). Meshes were created for all cases in major grid formats i.e OpenFOAM, STAR-CCM+, Fluent, CGNS in addition to geometry and surface meshes. Participants who submitted results were allocated a 15 minute presentation slot however those who wished to present relevant material (i.e wind-tunnel campaign of the DrivAer model) without computing the test-cases were allowed to speak.
Case 1 is the Windsor Body, which is a simplified vehicle like shape in wind tunnel conditions and is intended to capture the important flow-field structures without needing to model complex geometrical detail as is found in the second DriVAer case. The Windsor model, as developed by Steve Windsor of Jaguar Land Rover, used here has been modified to include a version with wheels. Further details are given in the (paper ) by Pavia et al. and the PhD thesis of Varney. These two cases have had extensive measurements taken at the Loughborough University wind tunnel at a Reynolds number of approximately 3 million (based on vehicle length). The full dataset is available here.
Two CAD definitions are provided for the with wheels (1A) and without wheels (1B) geometry. For each case, four standard meshes will be provided in a range of grid formats: low Re wall resolved RANS (WRRANS), wall modelled RANS (WMRANS), low Re wall resolved Eddy Resolving (WRER), wall modelled Eddy Resolving (WMER). For the WRER case, the high aspect ratio near the wall makes this suitable for DES and hybrid RANS-LES approaches, and it is not recommended to be used for a classic eddy resolving LES. A detailed description of the test case is available here (Version v0.5 - 18th June) and the kick off presentation slides here. . Links can also be found below for the post-processing instructions and an example set of files/templates to use for your submission.
| Data Submission | Instructions | Example files/template | ||
| Case 1a - geometry STL | STL | |||
| Case 1a - low Re wall resolved RANS (WRRANS) | CGNS | STAR-CCM+ | OpenFOAM | Fluent |
| Case 1a - wall modelled RANS (WMRANS) | CGNS | STAR-CCM+ | OpenFOAM | Fluent |
| Case 1a - low Re wall resolved Eddy Resolving (WRER) | CGNS (v2) | STAR-CCM+ | OpenFOAM (v2) | Fluent (v2) |
| Case 1a - wall modelled Eddy Resolving (WMER) | CGNS (v2) | STAR-CCM+ | OpenFOAM (v2) | Fluent (v2) |
| Case 1b - geometry STL | STL | |||
| Case 1b - low Re wall resolved RANS (WRRANS) | CGNS (v2) | STAR-CCM+ | OpenFOAM (v2) | Fluent (v2) |
| Case 1b - wall modelled RANS (WMRANS) | CGNS (v2) | STAR-CCM+ | OpenFOAM (v2) | Fluent (v2) |
| Case 1b - low Re wall resolved Eddy Resolving (WRER) | CGNS | STAR-CCM+ | OpenFOAM | Fluent |
| Case 1b - wall modelled Eddy Resolving (WMER) | CGNS | STAR-CCM+ | OpenFOAM | Fluent |
Case 2 is the notchback version of the open cooling DrivAer. A detailed description of the open cooling DrivAer test case is available here (Version v6 - 6th July) and from the SAE Technical Paper 2021-01-0958 by Hupertz et al.. The workshop will focus on a closed cooling DrivAer configuration with static wheels and static floor. A comprehensive set of experimental data from the Pininfarina Wind Tunnel (Courtesy of Ford) including aerodynamic forces, surface pressure, velocity profiles and 2D flowfield measurements will be available for the correlation of CFD analyses presented at the workshop. Please see below for the meshes which were created using ANSA by BETA-CAE Systems. The post-processing excel spreadsheet to enter your results can be found here (Version v15 - 6th July). Also the grid files for flowfield mapping in ANSA and Nastran format can be found here (Version v1 - 21st June).
| Case 2 - Surface meshes | STL | ANSA | JT | Nastran | |
| Case 2 - Wall-Function Grids | CGNS | OpenFOAM | Fluent | CFD++ | Mesh statistics |
| Case 2 - low y+ grids | CGNS | OpenFOAM | Fluent | CFD++ | Mesh statistics |
Final Agenda for the workshop is here: