Dr Evans will be giving a Plenary Lecture entitled “The use of CFD in the design of a 1,000mph car: Bloodhound SSC, an engineering adventure” to a worldwide audience of experts at the International Parallel CFD Conference in Kobe, Japan on Wednesday 11 May.

Figure 1: Dr Ben Evans with the BLOODHOUND SSC car

Engineering at Swansea University has an extensive track record of industrial collaboration and has significantly contributed to a number of prestigious projects. From the aerodynamic design of the THRUST Supersonic Car, which currently holds the world land-speed record, to the latest collaboration, aerodynamically designing the BLOODHOUND Supersonic Car.‌

Dr Evans sits on the design team for the BLOODHOUND SSC Land Speed Record project. His Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) research for BLOODHOUND SSC is taking place at the Swansea University Zienkiewicz Centre for Computational Engineering. These computational models have already influenced significant design aspects of BLOODHOUND including the front wheel configuration, the shape of the nose, the jet engine intake shaping, rear wheel fairings and wing shape and size. The CFD modelling continues to be one of the prominent tools used to develop the surface geometry of BLOODHOUND.

Figure 2: CFD flow visualisation over the final design configuration of BLOODHOUND SSC

Dr Evans said: “ My lecture will focus on the scientific and engineering challenges faced by the Bloodhound team, which includes researchers from Swansea University, in their quest to take a manned vehicle to 1000mph by 2017.

“ The Computational Fluid Dynamics research team at The College of Engineering, Swansea University has been working on the challenges we face not least of which being how the car will stay attached to the ground at these speeds and we have been developing computational models of the aerodynamic flows that BLOODHOUND will experience to help shape the vehicle design and predicting the overall aerodynamic behaviour of the vehicle.   

“ High Performance Computing was used as an integral component of the design and optimization cycles for the vehicle. In order to achieve the final design predicted lift and drag responses over 14 full vehicle design iterations were carried out.

“ The Bloodhound SSC is being built and the UK runway trials are planned for later in 2016 with the first (800mph) record attempt projected to take place the following year. Exciting times.”

• Dr Evans research interests range from computational shape optimisation and high speed aerodynamic modelling to molecular gas dynamics simulation.  He also has interests in engineering public engagement and engineering education. Dr Evans is a director of the Engineering Education Scheme in Wales (EESW) and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. For more information on Trailblazer Dr Evans go to http://www.swansea.ac.uk/makingwaves/benevans/
   
• For more information on Aerospace Engineering at the College of Engineering, Swansea University go to http://www.swansea.ac.uk/engineering/aerospace
  
  
• For more information on the Parallel CFD 2016 28th International Conference on Parallel Computational Fluid Dynamics go to http://www.conf.kit.ac.jp/parcfd2016