Bladeless Fans for Aero Benefit?

[Cam]

I only have limited knowledge in this area and was wondering if someone could give me an answer. Moveable aero regs prevents a lot of innovation, so would one of these bladeless fans, or something like it be allowed and if so, would it have any real effect?

[raymondu999]

What purpose do you have in mind? Internal cooling? Or more for performance?

[Cam]

Performance. I remember the fan car and other innovations designed to move air to generate downforce but with moving parts, surely this tech could do a similar job without upsetting the regs? To be honest, I have no idea if it's even worth a look.

[flynfrog]

http://scarbsf1.com/blog1/2010/02/25/fe ... elopments/

[Cam]

Is it an optical illusion or is that a spiral?

[raymondu999]

It's co-centric rings mate, lol.

[Caito]

That's not bladeless. It has a turbo like fan(with blades) but they throw the air through the slit in the "bladeless" circle.

So no, the circle has no blades, but the thing as a whole does.

[Cam]

so to get this bladeless thing working, you blow are through small slots and that starts the process, so could the air come from another source, say tubing from the front of the car?

Would it actually have any downforce effect if bolted onto an F1 car?

[Cam]

It's co-centric rings mate, lol.

So it's purpose is to draw air in/out by design of the off-centre rings as it spins?

[flynfrog]

That's not bladeless. It has a turbo like fan(with blades) but they throw the air through the slit in the "bladeless" circle.

So no, the circle has no blades, but the thing as a whole does.

pretty sure the wheel spokes dont have any AoA

They were put there to draw the hot air out.

[Lycoming]

If it had any effect on downforce, it would almost certainly be deemed a moveable aerodynamic device and immediately banned. No FIA scrutineer will be fooled by a fan hidden inside some plastic cover.

Sure, it could be used to generate downforce. All I have to do is bolt that thing to the rear crash structure and have it pull air from the diffuser.

The advantage of the dyson design, apart from looking really cool to the average consumer ("ZOMG No blades! It must be powered by black magic!") is that there are no exposed blades, which are a potential safety hazard. I suspect that it has greater frictional losses compared to a traditional fan, though it is not necessarily significantly more or less efficient overall.

Bottom line, I don't see how this is applicable to F1.

[Cam]

That's not bladeless. It has a turbo like fan(with blades) but they throw the air through the slit in the "bladeless" circle.

so to get this bladeless thing working, you blow air through small slots and that starts the process, so could the air could come from another source, say tubing from the front of the car?

it would almost certainly be deemed a moveable aerodynamic device and immediately banned. No FIA scrutineer will be fooled by a fan hidden inside some plastic cover.

So, if the air came from another source and not by hidden fans. I mean, the air blowing through the slot could be routed from another source, with no moving parts - so conceivably, this could muster?

EDIT: typos

[Lycoming]

Sure you could duct it, but what would that do? It's just adding more losses to the system to use it to power this as opposed to directly blowing wherever you want more airflow. And ducting is already sucking a lot of energy out of flow which probably doesn't have that much to begin with.

Sort of like what Red Bull are doing to blow the starter motor hole.

[Caito]

That's not bladeless. It has a turbo like fan(with blades) but they throw the air through the slit in the "bladeless" circle.

so to get this bladeless thing working, you blow air through small slots and that starts the process, so could the air could come from another source, say tubing from the front of the car?

it would almost certainly be deemed a moveable aerodynamic device and immediately banned. No FIA scrutineer will be fooled by a fan hidden inside some plastic cover.

So, if the air came from another source and not by hidden fans. I mean, the air blowing through the slot could be routed from another source, with no moving parts - so conceivably, this could muster?

EDIT: typos

Then yes, it would be passive. Just as the f-duct. The f-duct was blowing through a slit to stall a wing. You want to blow through a slit to force more air into that bladeless fan. If mercedes front duct is passive and legal, then this would be.

[Cam]

Thanks caito. I was sure in my own head it was feasible but needed some wiser brains to look at it.

Using that method, do you think it could act in a similar way to the old fan car or in other ways to dramatically increase downforce?