Wirth Research

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Wirth Research
TypeEngineering
Wirth Research Ltd
Industry LeMans LMP Engineering Racing Design Simulators F1
Founded2003
Founder Nicholas Wirth
Headquarters
Bicester, Oxfordshire
,
England
Website www.wirthresearch.com

Wirth Research is a group of engineering companies, founded by Nicholas Wirth in 2003, specialising in research, development, design and manufacture for the motor racing industry and other high technology sectors.

Contents

The companies use virtual engineering technologies to enable a completely simulated vehicle design, development and testing process. The group is known for deviating from traditional physical development models; most notably neglecting to use a wind tunnel and instead relying solely upon computational fluid dynamics to design the 2010 Virgin Racing VR-01 Formula 1 car. [1]

The Wirth Research group have a long-standing partnership with Honda Performance Development Inc (HPD) [2] which is responsible for the design, development and manufacture of the ARX sports cars. [3] Wirth Research also provides client IndyCar teams with full technical support.

Design

Wirth Research encompasses design disciplines that include:

Wirth Research uses tools provided by Siemens UGS PLM for many of its design activities.

Computational Fluid Dynamics

The company uses ANSYS Fluent solvers for its analysis.

Aerodynamic design

The largest department at Wirth Research, whose Computational Fluid Dynamics contents are typically evaluated by WR Digital.

Whilst the company is not known for using physical models in the development process, it does use real-world wind-tunnel testing to verify its CFD results.

Vehicle simulation

Two identical simulators are split between HPD's headquarters in Indianapolis and the company's base in Bicester. They are built in partnership with Cruden on a modified 6 degree of freedom motion platform constructed of carbon fibre and presently housing a DW12 Monocoque. The display mode consists of numerous projectors providing a passive stereoscopic 3D 170 degree display of a modified version of the Racer simulation engine. [4]

Virtual reality

Virtual reality and augmented reality applications such as Emersio are developed and used by Wirth Research for assessing ergonomic issues and presenting new ideas in 1:1 scale.

Related Research Articles

Simulation Imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time

A simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time. Simulations require the use of models; the model represents the key characteristics or behaviors of the selected system or process, whereas the simulation represents the evolution of the model over time. Often, computers are used to execute the simulation.

<i>FlightGear</i> Flight simulator

FlightGear Flight Simulator is a free, open source multi-platform flight simulator developed by the FlightGear project since 1997.

The von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics (VKI) is a non-profit educational and scientific organization which specializes in three specific fields: aeronautics and aerospace, environment and applied fluid dynamics, turbomachinery and propulsion. Founded in 1956, it is located in Sint-Genesius-Rode, Belgium.

Sim (simulated) racing or racing simulation are the collective terms for racing game software that attempts to accurately simulate auto racing, complete with real-world variables such as fuel usage, damage, tire wear and grip, and suspension settings. To be competitive in sim racing, a driver must understand all aspects of car handling that make real-world racing so difficult, such as threshold braking, how to maintain control of a car as the tires lose traction, and how properly to enter and exit a turn without sacrificing speed. It is this level of difficulty that distinguishes sim racing from "arcade" style driving games where real-world variables are taken out of the equation and the principal objective is to create a sense of speed as opposed to a sense of realism.

Driving simulator

Driving simulators are used for entertainment as well as in training of driver's education courses taught in educational institutions and private businesses. They are also used for research purposes in the area of human factors and medical research, to monitor driver behavior, performance, and attention and in the car industry to design and evaluate new vehicles or new advanced driver assistance systems.

Dallara Automobile chassis manufacturer

Dallara is an Italian race car manufacturer, founded by its current President, Gian Paolo Dallara. After working for Ferrari, Maserati, Lamborghini, and De Tomaso, Dallara wanted to fulfill his dream of working in the world of racing cars. In 1972 in his native village of Varano de' Melegari (Parma), Italy he created "Dallara Automobili". The successes in Formula 3 first in Italy then all over the world, its affirmation in America with the Indycar, the consultancies for important manufacturers and the constant attention to technology and innovation have all led Dallara to being recognized as one of the most important realities specialized in the designing, developing and production of racing cars.

Nick Wirth

Nicholas John Peter Wirth is an automotive engineer and the founder and owner of Wirth Research.

Acura ARX-01

The Acura ARX-01, later known as the HPD ARX-01 is a series of Le Mans Prototype built for sports car racing, specifically in the American Le Mans Series, Le Mans Series, and at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. It is the first purpose-built race car by the Acura division of Honda Motor Company, part of their multi-year program to eventually compete in endurance race. The car debuted in 2007 in the American Le mans Series before expanding to customers in Europe. Over the years various specifications of the ARX-01 chassis have been developed, each signified by a letter suffix. In 2010 Acura withdrew their name from the program and Honda Performance Development which developed the car for Acura continued the program into 2011.

Overflow (software)

OVERFLOW - the OVERset grid FLOW solver - is a software package for simulating fluid flow around solid bodies using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). It is a compressible 3-D flow solver that solves the time-dependent, Reynolds-averaged, Navier-Stokes equations using multiple overset structured grids.

Vortex Studio is a complete simulation software platform. It features a high-fidelity, realtime physics engine developed by CM Labs Simulations that simulates rigid body dynamics, collision detection, contact determination, and dynamic reactions. It also contains model import and preparation tools, an image generator, and networking tools for distributed simulation, accessed through a desktop editor via a GUI. Vortex adds accurate physical motion and interactions to objects in visual-simulation applications for operator training, mission planning, product concept validation, heavy machinery and robotics design and testing, haptics devices, immersive and virtual reality (VR) environments.

Virgin Racing Former Anglo-Russian Formula One constructor

Virgin Racing was a Formula One racing team which was under management of Manor Motorsport, Wirth Research and Richard Branson's Virgin Group which competed in Formula One in 2010 and 2011. It scored no points and finished last in the Constructor's Championship for the two years the team competed.

Honda Performance Development, Inc. (HPD) is a subsidiary of American Honda Motor Co. which was established in 1993 and is based in Santa Clarita, California. It is the technical operations center for Honda's American motorsports programs and is involved in the design and development of race engines and chassis for auto racing series such as the IndyCar Series, American Le Mans Series (ALMS), European Le Mans Series (ELMS), FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) and IMSA SportsCar Championship.

<i>rFactor 2</i> Computer racing simulator

rFactor 2 is a computer racing simulator developed by Image Space Incorporated and since 2016 developed by Studio 397. rFactor 2 was released for Windows in 2012. Like its predecessor, rFactor, it is designed to be modified and is used by professional racing teams for driver training and race car development. Much of its source code is derived from rFactor Pro, which is also used by professional racers and most of the Formula One teams and NASCAR manufacturers.

CarSim is a commercial software package that predicts the performance of vehicles in response to driver controls in a given environment. CarSim is produced and distributed by an American company, Mechanical Simulation Corporation, using technology that originated at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

CS Group initially known as CS Communication & Systèmes, is a French information-technology service company listed on the Paris Bourse as a member of the CAC Small index. The company designs information systems, develops and integrates software; manages projects and deploys industrial applications and provides science, technology and consulting services. CS Group is the French leader in air traffic control, the third biggest supplier of traffic-management systems in the world and provides information technology consulting services.

Honda Indy V8 engine Motor vehicle engine

The Honda Indy V8 is a 3-litre and 3.5-litre, naturally-aspirated V8 racing engine, developed and produced by Honda Performance Development in partnership with Ilmor Engineering for IndyCar Series. The V8 was a highly successful IndyCar Series engine from 2003 to 2011 season before being replaced by Honda Indy V6 at the following season. Honda Indy V8 was unveiled at the 2002 Detroit Auto Show and assembled at HPD power assembly plant in Santa Clarita, California, USA and Ilmor Engineering Inc. in Plymouth, Michigan, USA.

The HPD ARX-04b is an LMP2 race car designed and built by Wirth Research for Honda Performance Development. The car was designed as the successor to the HPD ARX-03 series of Le Mans Prototypes, however the poor performance of the car meant that the older model outlived the ARX-04b, and the 04b only contested one race, the 2015 24 Hours of Daytona.

Auto Research Center

Auto Research Center, also known as ARC Indy, is a research and development company with headquarters in Indianapolis, Indiana USA. It was founded as Reynard Motorsports North American headquarters, and became its own company in 2002.

CONSELF

CONSELF is a computer-aided engineering (CAE) platform used by engineers for design purposes. The platform, which highly relies on cloud computing, is developed by CONSELF SRL since its first release in October 2015. In March 2016 a new release of the platform defined guided workflows for the users with focus on turbomachinery, fire scenarios and flows with dispersed solid particles. Through the platform it is possible to run both Computational Fluid Dynamics and Finite Element Analysis. Among the solvers and libraries used by CONSELF platform, a number of open-source technologies are included, such as:

References

  1. "Leading experts in computational fluid dynamics and flow simulation". Wirth Research. Retrieved 15 February 2014.
  2. "Wirth partners with Honda on aero kit | IndyCar News". Crash.net. 13 September 2011. Retrieved 15 February 2014.
  3. "Leading experts in computational fluid dynamics and flow simulation". Wirth Research. Retrieved 15 February 2014.
  4. "Wirth Research Simulator – Videos — VirtualR – Sim Racing News". Virtualr.net. 11 October 2010. Retrieved 15 February 2014.