Meeting Jarrod Murphy, CFD Manager at LRGP
Here in Enstone, nestled in the lush countryside of Oxfordshire, we wanted to delve a little deeper to introduce you to the staff members who make Lotus Renault GP what it is.
The tall figure of Jarrod Murphy guides us through a series of large doors, along a corridor, towards the heart of the LRGP’s virtual wind tunnel (CFD, Computational Fluid Dynamics). The department is housed in a sort of bunker made up of several large rooms, dug into a hill behind the main plant building. Like everywhere else in Enstone, the place is spotlessly clean, but here particularly so. The building is so new that the floors shine.
Jarrod has been part of the team since 1996; it was his first job in F1. Recruited straight out of university, he spent three years in the constraints department before moving towards CFD.
«Our virtual wind tunnel installation is one of the most significant in F1,» proudly explains Murphy, entering a security code and pointing to the cluster: rows of computers managing millions of simulations simultaneously, and noisily, it must be said. « It’s the sound of the fans because the cluster runs 24/7, evaluating many different ideas and concepts. Usually, new ideas start in CFD before moving to the wind tunnel to gather data. We are constantly gathering it. What is crucial is the percentage we find. All teams continually improve their cars. No team remains static. So, our job is to come up with new ideas faster than other teams. »
Murphy admits that his team is motivated to do better, to be better than the competition. To see the car climb up the grid because it was developed faster than the others. Success lies in the efficiency of working methods. The more effective we are, the more ideas we will have to place in the cluster. This increases our success rate, which directly translates to better on-track performance. Engineers love finding solutions, and the challenge is to try to create more downforce while staying within the regulations. The ultimate measure of our department’s performance lies in the amount of downforce we apply to the car. It’s a precise indicator of the quality of our work.
Source: Lotus Renault GP
NB: Last February, the Pitstop column invited you to discover the principle of CFD.
