NASCAR Computational Fluid Dynamics expert Seth Dillard has run Lightning McQueen through his race car aero simulator, answering critical questions about the talking vehicle.FK Racing, a storied outfit you might recognize as Brad Keselowski‘s NASCAR team, decided to run an aerodynamic analysis of Lightning McQueen from Cars.
Now you can watch Seth Dillard, an Aerodynamics/CFD Engineer at RFK, break down Lightning’s aero viability.
“CFD” stands for Computational Fluid Dynamics, which can refer to the study of any liquid or gas in motion. But in this context, it’s an aero simulation, examining the movement of air across McQueen’s body. With powerful computer processors, a technician can understand how aerodynamic a car will be at different speeds and in different conditions using math.
Dillard refers to McQueen’s mouth as a point of “stagnation,” which means air doesn’t move there. But if McQueen were real, he’d be breathing through there (I don’t think he has a nose?) so maybe opening his mouth actually creates an aero benefit.
I’m not sure what exactly inspired this—maybe somebody at Disney just leaked Lightning’s specs? But safe to say, this has to be the first car Dillard’s analyzed that has different aerodynamic properties depending on its facial expression.
And spoiler alert: McQueen might not be the sleekest machine in the Cars universe!
Here’s the video: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1115611260640923
As of Thursday, AirShaper (the software that made this analysis possible) has released the 3D model you’re looking at here and another one, of McQueen’s rival Jackson Storm, for you to play with on your own computer (hit that link!).
When AirShaper’s people realized how much fun people were having with this, they hosted a whole demo video that explains more about the software and the aero properties of the Pixar cars. Check that out right here: