Monkey seat. Whats it worth?

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Perusing the F1 threads, and have yet to source much information about the "monkey seat".
Other than it provides cheap rear downforce, I havent seen it used by many teams this year. What stand outs for me, is that McLaren have a fairly prominent version.

What value does it have, and how easy is it to adapt to a design?

[Just_a_fan]

Looking at McLaren's version, I think they're using it more as a way of improving the effect of the beam wing than as a direct d/f producer in its own right. It won't make a huge amount of d/f on its own but it could have a beneficial effect on the centre portion of the beam wing and thus the diffuser below it.

If you look at the picture, the distances between the main wing, seat wing, beam wing and diffuser are all pretty similar. It looks like they are trying to get the centre sections (which might naturally be expected to get worse flow because of the engine cover etc ahead of them) working together as one.

I don't see it as a was of trying to claw downforce from a bolt-on element. I think it is more subtle, and probably much more effective, than that.

[raymondu999]

I never understood it as such - some people say it's good because it's guaranteed downforce - but I've also heard some say that it's a sign of a struggling team because it's not particularly efficient in terms of L/D

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

I never understood it as such - some people say it's good because it's guaranteed downforce - but I've also heard some say that it's a sign of a struggling team because it's not particularly efficient in terms of L/D

Thats exactly what I've heard and read. Although there doesn't seem to be any tangible evidence to suggest pros and cons for the development.

@ J_A_F
How will the monkey seat benefit the beam wing aerodynamically? Its a good few centimetres above the beam wing.

[raymondu999]

Agreed - and it's much too high up to be of any use as a diffuser extraction augmenter.

L/D I wouldn't be surprised if it was similar to beam wing figures - they're not too far off in terms of location anyways

[Just_a_fan]

The beam wing arches upwards below the seat wing, which itself is dished down in the middle. If they are within the seat wing's chord length apart then you'd expect some interaction between them (I'm thinking that there might be a ground effect-type relationship here but I'm not sure if that's a reasonable assumption or not). The upwash from the seat wing might help to improve extraction behind the central section of the beam wing and this will have an effect on the overall efficiency of the beam wing. And that should imrpove the diffuser too assuming that McLaren (and the other teams) are able to still use the beam wing to help drive the diffuser.

As for the L/D of the seat wing, I'd have thought it was somewhat worse than the beam wing because it has a very low aspect ratio. However, as the seat wing is sat behind the rest of the vehicle, I wonder how much drag it produces anyway. It might actually just be relatively drag free downforce.

Indeed, that might be why McLaren have gone with it - maybe they've gone for a lower drag design overall and then got the little bit of downforce, inherently lost by that decision, from the seat wing. Who knows?

Alternatively, maybe McLaren have decided to use the seat wing for a little extra downforce because they don't have the large cooling exit in front of that location as a number of the other teams have. Perhaps they have it because it works on their car and others don't have it because it doesn't work on theirs.

Or maybe McLaren really are struggling for rear d/f. But if they are, they're still mighty quick for a car that might be considered flawed in that case.

Maybe the seat wing is there to give Button the stable car he likes. Maybe Hamilton might run without the seat wing in races and be a little quicker in a straight line as a result?

So many maybes and no way of knowing for sure. Until we get in to the season fully and see the results of several races...

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Thank you J_A_F.

I'm pretty sure McLaren aren't in dire need of a monkey seat for D/F purposes, just struck me that they had one.
Looking at the various pics, I noticed that car initially didnt have one at launch but was added to the car during the Jerez test.

[bhallg2k]

There was a thought when such wings first appeared that they allowed higher angles of attack to be used on the rear wing because the "seat" wing helped to keep air flow attached to them.

[ringo]

Looking at McLaren's version, I think they're using it more as a way of improving the effect of the beam wing than as a direct d/f producer in its own right. It won't make a huge amount of d/f on its own but it could have a beneficial effect on the centre portion of the beam wing and thus the diffuser below it.

If you look at the picture, the distances between the main wing, seat wing, beam wing and diffuser are all pretty similar. It looks like they are trying to get the centre sections (which might naturally be expected to get worse flow because of the engine cover etc ahead of them) working together as one.

I don't see it as a was of trying to claw downforce from a bolt-on element. I think it is more subtle, and probably much more effective, than that.

its for the main wing performance. The beam wing is fine. It does create downforce on its own too.

[Just_a_fan]

Hadn't considered main wing performance but that does make sense - the upwash would help to keep the centre of the main wing working at higher AoA than might be normal in the relatively turbulent air behind the airbox.

[raymondu999]

The beam wing would probably be an extraction augmenter nowadays too, no? They're quite a bit lower than the pre-2009 rear wings - and those back then had quite a bit of interaction with the diffuser