Development of a race car simulationmodel for performance optimisation

Abstract

This master's thesis threats the subject of simulation in the automotive industry and especially in motorsport. Indeed, simulation is very important in motorsport for the teams to prepare races, for the drivers to train and during races to take all of the performance out of the car. It is not developed in GT racing and, thus, not in Team WRT. The goal of this project was, thus, to start the development of a model as general as possible that could be re fined afterwards to become closer and closer to the real car. Different software products can be used to simulate cars but the one chosen by the team was Matlab/Simulink. Some models based on the equations of motion coming from different books have been developed but the decision was then made to shift to Simscape, and especially Simscape Multibody, with the ability of modelling physical systems in the Simulink environment. This shift was pushed by the desire of the team to follow the trend in mortorsport of using the physical modelling features of the simulation software packages. Based on data provided by the manufacturer, a single suspension model was built in Simscape Multibody by forming an assembly of elements linking the different suspension points. The focus was made on building a model as general as possible to be able to follow the evolutions on the car or to use the model for an other car. This was done by relying on the suspension fixation points giving a model that can be adapted easily by changing those points. As the results matched the manufacturer's data, a model of a whole axle could be developed by using two single suspension models, one for each side, and a chassis linking the suspensions. This model also proved to match the manufacturer's data. Eventually, following the logical evolution of the models, a complete model was built using two axle models and a chassis part linking the axles. In this model, some features able to set auto- matically different settings on the car such as camber angle or ride height were developed with the aim of building a complete set-up tool that could give advices on set-up changes to the mechanics. Unfortunately, a complete, usable, and trustful set-up tool wasn't achieved because of the necessity to put some more effort in different areas that are crucial to obtain an accurate representation of the car. In conclusion, a general model of the car run by Team WRT based on the suspension fixation points was developed using the physical modelling software Simscape Multibody. This model matches the data provided by the manufacturer but some more efforts are still needed in crucial areas to represent the car in an accurate way.