Rear Wing Redesign: Closing the Sim-to-Track Gap

Rather than trust the full-car model further, I built a simulation focused specifically on the rear wing: all static and moving surrounding components included, an overset mesh method to merge the static and dynamic component meshes without introducing deformities, and a transition shear-stress-transport turbulence model chosen specifically because it handles the complex boundary layers, detached flow, and oscillating vortices this geometry produces.

The focused simulation reproduced the track-observed detachment and traced it to the main plane’s excessive thickness and camber. That diagnosis drove a redesign: a new main-plane and endplate geometry, plus an added flap.

When simulation and track (or test-bench) data disagree, the fix usually isn’t a better full-system model — it’s a focused, correctly-scoped simulation of the specific component in question, with the right turbulence model for the physics actually happening there.