Aerodynamic effects of manufacturing tolerances on a solar car.

In the case of solar vehicles, since the primary necessity is to optimise the energy eciency during motion, many eorts are addressed by designers in searching the perfect aerodynamics. It means,in particular, the minimization of the drag force at cruising speeds and an elaborated vehicle's Computer-Aided Design (CAD) are the principal result of this activity. Despite, these eorts can be nullied by geometrical tolerances emerging from manufacturing. In this paper, the eects of tolerances introduced by composite manufacturing processes are investigated combining 3D scanning technology and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). After the solar car manufacturing, a reverse engineering process is executed with the aim to scan the vehicle's body and compare it to the initial theoretical design. Geometric deviations are found and their aerodynamic consequences are evaluated in terms of aerodynamic losses.