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The aerodynamic evaluation that influences the shape of new vehicles is only one of the many different aspects that must be carefully considered in a vehicle design program. However, the aerodynamic development enters from the earliest stages, in the shape optimization program, and continues up to full production level, until the detail is optimized. As wind tunnel measurements continue to be the most common and extensively used approach, the rapid evolution of computers in terms of electronic data processing and storage and the progress achieved in computational fluid dynamics (CFD), suggest its utilization in supporting and reducing experimental tests.

Though CFD methods have become very popular and widespread tools in the early as well as more advanced automotive design stages, they are still not so common in the motorcycle industry branch. The present work aims at the development of a comprehensive simulation environment, based on the open-source finite volume toolbox OpenFOAM®, for the aerodynamic and thermal fluxes optimization of a full motorcycle-and-rider geometry. The paper is divided in two parts: in the first one, the OpenFOAM® code is evaluated for a cold flow aerodynamic analysis, using a slightly simplified version of the Aprilia RSV4 motorbike geometry; in the second one, a mixed reduced scale-full scale methodology is proposed for the simultaneous assessment of aerodynamic forces and heat transfer performances of the engine cooling system. Results have been compared against other well established commercial CFD packages and, where available, with experimental measurements.