[plucas]

Originally Posted by Dimman

I'm starting to research hardware and Linux, after over a decade being out of the loop for what is cutting edge.

I was looking at starting with an Intel i7, but saw on your blog you are using Intel Xeon. What should I focus the build around? Which resources should be the priority (cpu, core number, cache, ram, video card)? Is the CFD mostly cpu/ram intensive, and ParaView graphics card intensive?

Also, how much of a difference in performance between a regular Linux install (Ubuntu) and going through VirtualBox on Windows?

Thanks for any help you can offer.

I have an i7 for my personal computer with 32gb of ram. Basically meshing is very ram intensive and computing is cpu intensive. This however does not mean that the other isn't important also. Paraview is very graphics card intensive. I would personally do it around an i7 to keep cost down. Then the quickest and most ram you can run. Then for graphics card, I am not sure what you would need. I am not a computer expert and I had a friend help with specing out and building my computer.

We now however have a nice workstation with xeons. I will run the same simulation on my personal computer vs the workstation and compare results. I will also then let you know the complete specs of both.

Originally Posted by EarlQHan

Paul told me it's CPU/RAM intensive. I believe he has dual i7's with 16GB and a full car model takes around 18-24 hrs to process. With our workstation, it can be done in 2-4 hrs. Not sure of the performance difference but we use Ubuntu through VirtualBox. I don't know much about computers though, so I'm sure he can tell you more.

This basically. I will run an analysis to compare.

Originally Posted by Dimman

@EarlQHan

Speaking of wind-tunnels not being real world, either: are spinning tires and moving ground available in OpenFoam?

Yes both are available but not called the same. You just have to set the boundary conditions. Really almost anything is possible with OpenFOAM since you can write your own code.

Originally Posted by OrbitalEllipses

Race cars and street cars are very different. The TRD Griffon car was BUILT to go around Tsukuba. Race cars are use flat bottoms for aero; however, I don't see a flat bottom working well with a daily driver that's sitting at lights and traffic. Why? Flat bottoms generally have issues with cooling that require smart engineering to fix. You introduce one variable, it changes another. @Turn in Concepts can attest to this: they put a flat bottom belly pan on their race car several years ago and subsequently ran into trouble with transmission and diff overheating during races because these parts didn't get enough airflow presumably. A street car might not car get as hot, but it certainly has even less of a chance to have effective cooling.

As far as the diffuser goes, there's been talk of the stock muffler aiding in reducing lift at the rear (posters and I believe someone tracked down an official comment). I didn't get a chance to drive the car much before switching out the muffler for a different unit, but it seems to me that the rear of the car has become less stable at highway speeds. It could to winter tires and a bad headwind, but that's what I feel. I'd like to see some definitive results on this.

Flat bottoms can work and work well on street cars. It just has to be engineered. It will not work well if you just slap a cover on the bottom of the car and do not change anything else. The whole cooling of the car has to be changed. Engine cooling, trans cooling, and diff cooling would all have to change. Cars are a system and need to be engineered as a system.