On the weekend of July 4, 2006 Russ Wicks took a stock car faster than anyone ever has, and set an official world land speed record. The fixed rules of stock car racing require engineers to search for advantages by focusing on better engineering of existing technology. To get more and more speed out of existing technology is extremely challenging. With the help of Autodesk Inventor® and Autodesk® AliasStudio™ software products, the team enhanced the aerodynamics, advanced safety systems, and utilized in-car computer telemetry to push the capacity of the stock car above 222 mph.
The American Challenge Engineering Team started by creating an optical scan of the stock car. Using Autodesk AliasStudio, the team was able to smooth all surfacing and create a NURBS model for a more aerodynamic result. The resulting IGS files were then imported into Autodesk Inventor to allow design of modifications. Extensive CFD analyses were performed to predict aerodynamic lift and pitch and yaw moments. Autodesk Inventor was then used for the design of enhancements suggested from the CFD analysis.
