The Stanford Solar Car Project, a student-run, nonprofit organization within Stanford University, has been designing and building solar cars since 1989, and arrives in Darwin every two years with a stunning new vehicle.

The aerodynamics tool-chain with SU2 CFD Code, Pointwise Meshing and Tecplot Visualization & Analysis.

To understand SU2 simulation results, the Solar Car team used Tecplot 360 EX. The first thing they needed to do is understand if their CFD simulations ran correctly. They wanted to minimize drag and get lift very close to zero. They looked for areas of drag on the vehicle, which is commonly visualized by looking at pressure contours as well as streamlines. How did the Solar Car team use Tecplot 360 EX in their design iterations? They set-up a process where they would do each design iteration, and they had a set of predefined images they could create using plot layouts. A layout is a set of instructions to tell Tecplot 360 EX what data to load and then how to represent it in the view. For example, the team created images that show surface quantities of the pressure coefficient and streamlines going around the vehicle.

Analyze the results in Tecplot 360 EX using multiple frames.

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