Abstract

Total Airflow Management for a New Hybrid Supercar Using Advanced  CFD

Development of the NSX supercar required an integrated Engine Cooling(E/C) performance solution for the high performance twin-turbo V6 engine and 3-motor Sporty Hybrid power unit that leverages 10 independent heat exchangers. A mid-development engine and transmission layout change removed the opportunity to test actual vehicles until a number of fundamental layout, power and performance decisions could be made. CFD became the primary tool to analyze the management of airflow through the heat exchangers to support the mid-development performance enhancements.Multiple target speeds for the heat exchangers required many CFD jobs run for each configuration and there were many configuration changes during development due to the integrated nature of a supercar. This presentation explains the use of open source CFD software to allow the necessary turnaround time and modeling capacity to address such a large and complex engineering challenge and the achievement of meeting the E/C performance target during the initial validation test.

About the Speaker

Mr. Thomas Ramsay, Honda R&D Americas, Inc.

Principal Engineer & Acura NSX Aerothermal Project Leader

Mr. Tom Ramsay is currently a Principal Engineer at Honda R&D Americas and Department Manager on the Vehicle Performance - Dynamic Performance Department as well as the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Technical Expert and responsible for direction and strategy of full vehicle CFD models for most passenger cars and light trucks developed for the North American market.  Mr. Ramsay is also the Aerothermal Project Leader for the All-New Acura NSX. Before working at Honda R&D, Tom worked at Battelle Memorial Institute in the National Security Division where he did anti-armor research, munitions design and development, and counter-explosive and counter-narcotic research.

Tom received a Bachelor of Science and Masters of Science in Aeronautical Engineering, both from The Ohio State University in 1989 and 1993, respectively.   Tom is a member of SAE and belongs to the VehicleAerodynamics Forum Committee, the Vehicle Configuration Committee, and the Motorsports Engineering Conference Committee.  Tom is also active in AIAA, having been the Chair of the Columbus Section as well as a member of the Fluid Dynamics Technical Committee.
Tom’s professional and vocational interests lie in the areas of aerodynamics, fluid dynamics, physics, and mathematics and include wide ranging topics such as automotive aerodynamics, applied computational geometry, the physics and mathematics of sports, numerical and experimental correlation, and race car aerodynamics, which is a nice fusion of his passion, education, and employment.  Tom is married to Robyn- also an aeronautical engineer - and they have two daughters in high school.