Project Highlight: CalSol Solar Vehicle Aero Shell

Every year, CalSol Solar Vehicle team competes in endurance-based races on racetracks and highways across the US. To achieve optimal performance with our road-legal fully solar-powered vehicle, an aerodynamic shell must be designed, validated, and fabricated to minimize drag while maintaining dynamic stability. For our tenth-generation vehicle, Excalibur, this complex design and manufacturing problem was tackled by myself and the rest of the CalSol Aerodynamics/Composites Team (who are credited in the sections below).

CAD Model of Final Designed Shell

Used Solidworks Surface Modeling to design asymmetric catamaran shell geometry for solar vehicle
Designed composite molds for manufacturability with sufficient radius of curvature and proper draft angle for mold design
Iteratively designed shell with CFD analysis to minimize drag and maintain dynamic stability, ultimately achieving 30% drag reduction from previous generation vehicle
Collaborated with Annika Yong, Anthony Zhou, Eatone Cheng, Erik Francis, Haochen Gao, and Dylan Callaway

Developed high-fidelity Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation in ANSYS Fluent to quantify performance of the shell
Conducted simulation suite to characterize crosswind behavior
Ran calculations to combine aerodynamic loads with vehicle dynamics to assess dynamic stability under worst-case loads
Conducted mesh convergence studies and advised on wind tunnel tests to validate CFD results

Fabricated full composite shell and monocoque chassis with prepreg and wet layup techniques, integrating carbon fiber, fiberglass, Nomex, aluminum, and various adhesive plies
Conducted draping simulations in Siemens Fibersim and lasercut composite ply templates to streamline manufacturing
Interfaced with composite suppliers to coordinate composite tooling manufacturing and procure raw materials

4th-place finish and Fastest Lap award on debut!