Effecting the diffusor upwash

[Zynerji]

If you had 3 of these stacked(with gaps between) and mounted it to the rear face of the diffusor, would it clean up the air for a following car? It could be exhaust driven, where the exhaust would exit into this device with a waste gate that opens above idle to bleed into the normal exhaust pipe.

http://products.exair.com/super_air_kni ... AsFe8P8HAQ

This would be interesting to see on one of the MVRC cars for looking at the flow.

[bill shoe]

If you had 3 of these stacked(with gaps between) and mounted it to the rear face of the diffusor, would it clean up the air for a following car? It could be exhaust driven, where the exhaust would exit into this device with a waste gate that opens above idle to bleed into the normal exhaust pipe.

http://products.exair.com/super_air_kni ... AsFe8P8HAQ

This would be interesting to see on one of the MVRC cars for looking at the flow.

Several years ago when McLaren turned up to pre-season testing with the rumored "octopus" exhaust, I think it later turned out (yes, more rumors) that it was more akin to the air-knife you linked to. I would think that if you could get this to work you would use it to seal the sides of the undertray, and also blow from the trailing edge of the diffuser like you say. Maybe also blow something at the leading edge of the undertray a-la Lotus a few years ago. These types of ideas have clear theoretical merit, but they're apparently very difficult to translate into practical and consistent lap-time improvements.

Of course, Williams have been actively researching this for some time. They avoid violating the resource restriction agreement by claiming it's for a different purpose:

http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-motor- ... D320150424

[Zynerji]

I was more interested in making it a spec part that would create a laminar air flow onto the following cars front wing to allow closer racing.

Supercharging the diffusor exit is simply downforce bonus.

If exhaust driven, it would need to reach its max potential at idle RPM to eliminate the sudden drop while going off throttle, so it would need some pressure regulating device (waste gate) that would keep a constant pressure.

I would love to see a simple mock up.

[roon]

Make a big version of this and span it over the track. Install a series of them along the section where overtaking most likely occurs. A car's wake will be sliced & diced, and wouldn't stretch out along the whole length of a track section. Close following becomes more predictable. And the cars will make a cool wham-wham-wham slapping sound passing through each knife/air-curtain.