WF01
Sports Car
The requirement of a sports car completely made of carbon fiber and compatible with the strict FIA-CN2 competition gave birth to this demanding and challenging project back in 2009.
A Sport Prototype car with a monocoque chassis built in composites, “soaked with air”, with rigidity characteristics, weight and aerodynamic efficiency unseen so far in their category. The chassis philosophy is more similar to LMP car than Sport Prototype Car class.
Challenged both by the project’s complexity and the stringent deadline, AXIRO was requested to engage all its prior experience gained in aerospace and automotive sphere, to deliver this highly distinctive engineering project.
The delivery deadline for this project was set to the end of July 2009, to enable subsequent manufacturing and homologation phases, and eventual racetrack testing by the end of November 2009.
The WF01 Project, (as we call it now, as the official name was unveiled only at the car’s presentation) remains an example of how effective management capabilities combined with technical expertise and diversified experiences have contributed to a winning solution driven by passion and creative impulse.
In its category, the WF01 represents a true and distinctive break from the past, as to the applied technical contents and approach.
Best in class
The choice of the design and simulation equipment to support the technical-scientific preparation of the engineers.
First time right
Creating the object accurately with attention to the details starting from the first version.
Parallel engineering
Enabling an efficient flow of information by cutting drastically the time needed for the information to pass from one technical area to the others.
The removable front cover allows the access to all front suspension components, and illustrates the mounting / dismounting possibility using only four fixings.
The last task was to find a way for to reduce the front part vertical obstructions in order to improve visibility.
Chassis of the Wolf GB08
The heart of the car, this component fundamentally originates as a really innovative element for the vehicles of this category. The objectives were torsional and bending stiffness, with requests in terms of security that are related, on the other side, with definitely low targeted weight.
To achieve this goal, as the composite materials analysts have made choices without compromise, the only way to follow up was that to intervene on the chassis’ shape, from one side to the other, pushing to the extreme the lay-up optimization of carbon layers, their shapes and orientations according to the most extreme operative conditions. The experience gained in aerospace and tight collaboration with suppliers of the highest level have granted achievement of the winning posts.
Aerodynamics
Suspensions
Considering a rapid evolution of this category cars, aside from the traditional scheme of the rear suspension, from the very beginning of the project a front suspension architecture is devised in a way that could anticipate two different schemes: a double wishbone with push rod for centrally mounted single shock absorber or, alternatively, an innovative system with tree shock absorbers, as a subject of recent developments.
A suspension mechanisms and its dynamics are studied during so called multi body simulation, introducing a bending of the components, apart from the detailed definition of flexible and damping elements.
Car homologations
A final step of the GB08 project was the FIA homologation, comprising all static and dynamic tests, predicted by regulations, and conceived, in fact, to guarantee security of the driver. For this purpose the crash test was needed, even if all the other checks fully satisfied norms and regulations, above all to give a full value to the computer simulations we made, confirming that way AXIRO’s methodological effectiveness.
Tools
- Pro-Engineer | Modeling of parts and surfaces
- Hypermesh-Hyperview | Numeric simulations pre-post processing
- Nastran | Static case of composites structures
- Radioss | Crash calculation
- CFX | Computational Fluid Dynamics simulation
* The choice of the tools used in this project was determined by the client. AXIRO uses various software for both simulation and modeling and can adapt to client’s choices.
With great united passion for motor sports AXIRO has delivered successfully, together with its partners a complex project which contained extreme technical challenges concerning the fundamental features of this Sports Car.
