Interactive Intro to Aerodynamics/CFD by Local Motors

If you are interested in automotive design and looking to develop a better intuitive grasp of aerodynamics, today is your lucky day.

PeterBuilt is sponsoring a design competition for the next Big Rig via the Local Motors Forge, a place where interested members of the online open source community can go to work and play at vehicle design.

The Local Motors website is encouraging visitors to download Project Falcon, and use it to play around with edgy new Big Rig designs for the Peterbuilt design competition.  Project Falcon is a new and at least temporarily free piece of wind tunnel simulation software that allows for interactive investigation of the aerodynamic performance of designs, and is intended to be used early in the conceptual design phase. Project Falcon reads .STL files, so you have a lot of options for CAD software to model your ideas. The goal is to find a design that will look good and increase fuel economy by achieving greater aerodynamic optimization of the vehicle. The motivation?  10 Awards, and $15,000 in prizes.

The design submission period is June 5th - June 26th.

Here's the video via Local Motors:




Project Falcon may also be a great tool for those of you looking to get into Open Source Aircraft design.

Look out for a future post with more details on Project Falcon software.