SYNOPSIS

Students and young engineers are often unaware of the expectations from the automotive industry when the industry engage in consultancy or require Aerodynamics work in-house.  Aerodynamics are often thought of as reducing drag, or making the car goes faster or more efficient.  More often than not, this accounts to a small amount in the total engineering value of a land vehicle, except for motor sports vehicle.  A higher demand from the industry is on the skills and knowledge related to airflow management inside the engine bay, i.e. cooling although nevertheless this still falls within the realm of aerodynamics.  As technology grows in Malaysia, more iterations in the computer simulation models are made and required before arriving at a certain mature design of the front side of a vehicle, especially passenger cars, where the aesthetics value is arguably higher than the engineering value, from the end-customers viewpoint. There are conflicts along the way in integration with other aspects of engineering such as hydrodynamics of the design of a vehicle.  Abroad, such integration work is very common in the process of a vehicle design and production however, to follow this process requires a lot of investment in R&D, which in Malaysia is limited to one or two companies.  Students, lecturers and aspiring engineers can be made aware of the industry expectations and furnish themselves during the years at universities and beginning career with skills and knowledge related to this demand.  This talk discusses on the skills, knowledge, expectations, routine problems, dilemmas, conflicts, etc in the industry on performing this engineering task.


BIODATA OF SPEAKER

Ir. Azmir has more than 19 years of experience in Automotive Design, Engineering, CAE, CFD, R&D, Research, Formula 1, Consulting and Training.  His experience in Automotive involved designing the power steering system and cooling system from scratch, ground up to mass-production.  From a generalist role in engineering design to very detail specialist role in CFD analyses of the systems.  He is also experienced in project management, shown in a first-ever in Malaysia, a successful collaborative research involving a corporate organisation, multiple government ministries, government research institutions and multiple universities which ultimately secured a multi-million funding from MOSTI in 2009 for such purpose. In 2010, he pursued a much deeper involvement as a CFD specialist in F1 Aerodynamics in the UK. He is now back in Malaysia as a consultant and trainer, providing engineering services to customers in the passenger car or F1 industries.