Formula 1 Wing Composite Lay-up Optimisation

VR&D Genesis has the capability to optimise the lay-up of composite materials for both ply orientation and thickness. This capability allows for the definition of discrete steps to be defined to the variation of orientation and thickess, which is a key requirement when optimising composite lay-ups. An optimisation has been performed on the lower rear wing section of a formula one car to demonstrate the capabilities of this process.

Design Objective
Minimise the mass of the lower wing section

Loading
500N force in forward direction applied to upper wing section.
Lower wing section constrained at attachment to rear crush cone.

Constraints
Maximum displacement of upper wing section of 1.5mm.
Composite failure index of all parts must not exceed 1.

Design Variables
Lower wing section sectioned into 7 designable regions
Ply orientations are varied between –90o to +90o in increments of 15o
Ply bundle thicknesses varied between 0.2 to 1.4mm in increments of 0.2mm

Optimisation Results Summary

The optimisation exercise performed on the rear wing section successfully demonstrates the abilities of GENESIS in the optimisation of composite material lay-ups.

The design study converged on a solution for the lower wing section with a mass of 1.10kg.
The optimisation process demonstrated through this example can be applied to any composite structure and can consider multiple load cases including:

- Linear Static
- Normal Modes frequency Analysis
- Linear Buckling Analysis