Naming Conventions for Automotive & Motorsports
Establishing consistent and meaningful naming conventions for CAD files is crucial for maintaining an organised and efficient design workflow.
When you upload a part, you must specify a ‘zone’ name. The zone name is important because bramble uses it to set boundary conditions and the mesh recipe for that component.
This name will typically be of the form:
<zone>-<description>
Where zone matches a predefined list names, and description can be whatever the user wishes with the exception that they only use letters, numbers and hyphens; no spaces.
For example:
body-sidepod-vent or rw-flap
You’ll find a description of the standard names further down the page.
In order for the kinematics to work correctly, specific descriptions are required for the suspension and wheel components. Similarly, internal flow planes (such mass flow planes and wheel MRFs) need to zone “toint” (pronounced “to – int”. These are covered in more detail at the end of the blog.
Wheels and Suspension – Double Wishbone
The example shows a rear wheel, using the same naming convention for the front wheel (just replace “rr” with “fr”). In addition to <zone>-<description>, the side of the vehicle needs specifying (i.e. ‘lhs’ or ‘rhs’ for the left or right hand side).
For example rr-wh-tyre-lhs. Place lhs or rhs at the end of the name.
-
All other components that rotate with the wheel should be called:
rr-wh-<description>-lhs (e.g. rr–wh-rim-lhs)
-
Call components that move with the wheel, but do not rotate:
rr-int-<description>-lhs (e.g. rr-int-upright-lhs)
Default – Zone Names
- body-
- eb-
- rw-
- fw-
- rr-wh / rr-int-
- rr – susp
- fr-wh- / fr-int-
- fr-susp
- uf-
Additional – Zone Names
“toints”
Within a CFD model it is necessary to separate out specific regions (e.g. a radiator core, or the fluid between wheel spokes), or to measure flow rates passing through a duct. Our in-house engineers use a special zone name called “toint” to define these regions. which comes from the shortening of “to interior”.
Specific zone names are:
- Radiators: toint-rad-<description> e.g. toint-rad-water-lhs
- Wheel RRFs: toint-rrf-<description>-<side> e.g. toint-rrf-fr-lhs
- Mass flow planes: toint-mfp-<description> e.g. toint-mfp-fr-br-duct-lhs