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A
Need for Speed
Jon
Vogt
At
high school, I didn’t play much sport because my eyesight
is extremely limited. However, I was always very interested
in the aerodynamics of Formula 1 racing cars
and decided fairly early to go down the engineering path so
that I eventually I’d be able to get my hands on them myself.
Hi there. My name is Jonathan Vogt, and I am a Ph.D. student
at the University of New South Wales in the Faculty of Engineering.
My research is in the area of ground
effect aerodynamics (Ground effect aerodynamics:
The very unique aerodynamic behaviour of vehicles that operate
in close proximity to the ground. ED), my specific topic of
research is on the flowfeild around an upside-down wing, like
those used on racing cars. The behaviour of air rushing over
these devices, when they’re near the ground, is very different
to when they’re used elsewhere and is not very well understood
as yet.
In additional to wind tunnel experiments, I do a lot of my
work using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), which a computer-based
tool that I use to simulate the flow over wings. Like most
days, I spent much of the 12th of April running simulations
using this program so that I can get a better idea of the
finer details of what is happening in the flow.
The highlight of my day was getting my standard caffeine hit
from the coffee cart at the university, not that exciting
but helps to keep me going throughout the day.
I did maths and physics at school, Aerospace Engineering at
UNSW before starting my PhD. I hope to broaden the understanding
of how wings function when close to the ground so that we
can make better, more efficient, use of this
fascinating natural phenomenon in the future to help
things go faster … and more.
Reporter: AJ Epstein |
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