Front duct motor cooling design Project

Context

During the 2024-2025 academic year, Oxford Brookes Racing engaged themself in a challenging project to reduce the overall weight of the car in the pursuit of performance. One of the project consisted into the conversion of the frontal electric motor from water to air. A challenging project with high reliability risks and design constraints.

Methodology

The methodology employed for this project was first to set up the specification of the project by listing the temperature and mass flow target set through the data sheets of the motors and the thermal exchange computations. After this, an overall look at the aerodynamic design regulations was conducted to understand the design opportunities. Finally, a systematic iteration design approach was conducted with thermal CFD simulations using RANS and URANS solvers.

Challenges

Design

The major challenges encountered in this project was to fit the design inside the suspension system which was not subject to any changes from the 2024 car with respecting the specifications. The design needed to be minimalistic to ensure low weight and efficiency. Therefore, to increase the heat exchange efficiency, a heat sink was added to the design to increase cooling area exposure. The heat sink is made out of aluminium and printed in 3D thanks to our sponsor.

Simulation

Exploring and learning thermal CFD allowed us to discover and enhance our CFD skills but required deep learning regarding the lack of experience from the people working on the project.

Communication/Organisation

This project lied in between different departments (aerodynamics, powertrain and suspension) and required weekly meetings and organisation to ensure proper collaboration as the aerodynamic department relied for the design on information from the other departments to set the specifications of the cooling duct.

Outcomes

The outcome of this project was the implementation of the design for the FSUK competition with a successful completion of the endurance race. OBR finished third overall with a 15th position in endurance and no reliability issues.