The University of Wales Trinity Saint David and MCR Race Cars Ltd has debuted a new aerodynamic package, which was fully student designed, at Donington Park. The bodywork design was the result of a collaborative partnership between University of Wales Trinity Saint David, MCR Race Cars, sports racing car manufacturers and John Iley.
As part of the Motorsport Engineering course at UWTSD in Swansea, students conducted wind tunnel and track testing before developing a computational model of the original sports 2000 MCR bodywork package so that its performance could be assessed. By applying validated Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) techniques, students were able to identify areas for improvement and developed a brand new concept for a body work package which was then manufactured by the project partners (John Iley of Iley Design manufacturing the patterns and Anthony Evans of MCR Race Cars Ltd manufacturing the moulds and Prototype bodywork)
The resulting design is visually very different to the original package and the project continues to further develop the bodywork and chassis platform over the next year to extract and optimise its performance on circuit.
UWTSD Motorsport Engineering student, John Hughes said: “Seeing the car in the flesh for the first time was an amazing feeling after all of the hours of design work we put in. I was still nervous though, as moving from a virtual model to a physical creation may display inaccuracies within the data we had collected over the past years, but thankfully the car performed faultlessly, and the performance feedback was incredibly promising. I feel humbled and proud to be part of such an achievement and so thankful that I got to collaborate with some amazing engineers during the journey of this project.”
Tim Tudor, senior lecturer at UWTSD and project lead said: “It’s absolutely fantastic to see the bodywork package designed by our very own students here at UWTSD hit the track for the first time today. It’s the culmination of the students’ hard work and analysis which has been supported by our partners at MCR Race Cars and Iley Design. The next phase of the students work to assess their design and extract it’s full performance potential can now begin.”
Clive Hayes of MCR Race Cars was also happy to see the development debut. He said: “For the first time out for a new set of body work, the test went exceptionally well with no issues encountered. We are really pleased with the performance of the prototype and look forward to developing it further with UWTSD and Iley Design.”
John Iley (Iley Design Ltd) and Professor of Practice at UWTSD supported the project from its conception and was present at the debut. He said: “It has become a personal mission for me to see this ambitious UWTSD multi student project reach fruition. Extensive development work from first concepts, iterated through process and tools to a final real solution, competing on track in such a high level competitive National series provides a fine testimony for both them and the University. I look forward to being track side during the races ahead to help the UWTSD team develop and realise its full potential.”
