McLaren MP4-29 Mercedes

[bar555]

sawtooth profiles, similar to humpback whale fins, were common a half decay ago, pioneered by Ferrari and Mc Laren. The first F1 most striking example of this feature was seen on bargeboards. Another example was the trailing edge of the upper flap of Mc Laren's front wing back in 1999. Copying nature is not odd to F1 and all modern technology. Worths remembering Minardi 's dolphin nose, honeycomb chassis and delta wings (inspired from insects) .

[gary123]

[Kiril Varbanov]

Mclaren had their gear ratio change done this weekend.

[Morteza]

Formula1.com

[turbof1]

Small teaser concerning upcoming article about Mclaren Germany novelties:



(I hope I got it roughly right! It was a very difficult one to draw.)

[Holm86]

http://i.imgur.com/aNY7AeI.png

Formula1.com

Fits pretty much with what I was saying at page 135.

[flyboy2160]

I moved all the 'how many gearboxes" and McLaren "design path" posts to the Team thread. Design details of car parts here.

[ollandos]

i think mclaren problem is from last seasn ...the wild tunel errors......if yoy have smothing like this you loose min.2 season ....
and that the reason for ....''basicaly'' desing at the start ..of the season of mp4/29.....i see a fear on the team on aero ...
and many work on test the tunel data ....before the steps.....on the car.......last year that time the team they don't have any idea why the car is too bad.......and the same time must have start the next year car......
they do not have anything to delivery from mp4.28 to mp4.29 ......this mean one season with out develop....and big step back .....i think now push hard to win the lost time ...and that the reason for sooner upgrades ...1 week is 1 gp 1gp is lot miles
with engines trucks upcoming and the performance of ferrari and red bull 3rd place is realistic target .....

[zioture]

TECHNICAL ANALYSIS WING "SERRATED" PART 1







Read all

https://translate.google.it/translate?h ... &sandbox=1

[hollus]

Wow, according to that the wing becomes effectively bigger while losing drag causing front section. I wonder how everyone missed on this magic trick for so long, including virtually all airplane designers so far.

And then there is this, the "classic" and wrong explanation of how wings work (applying to the shape ofthe bulges here) : "the flow which passes on the lower part will have to accelerate relative to the flow which passes on the upper part, and this means that will be created a difference of pressures that push even more the car to the ground". I wonder what the wing was doing when it had no bulges?

In my opinion this is "your drawingws on a scheme of a wing" and not an analysis. When an analysis of a novelty yields advantages, advantages and more advantages and absolutely no compromises or negative effects, it is cheering, not an analysis.

Let's be clear, the front section of the leading edge did not become smaller, and the used plane section probably did. And another thing, the air does not "strike the wing", it flows around it (mostly). Unless I am wrong ot the translation is really misleading, that is.

[bhall II]

Google Translate doesn't seem to do very well with Italian, and that article is no exception. It's pretty much unreadable.

I think the initial analysis earlier in the thread was pretty much spot-on. Seen as blunt vortex generators, the tubercles on the trailing edge of the main plane should allow for a higher AoA, because the vortices will energize flow along the back of the flap to prevent separation. They could also reduce drag somewhat by inhibiting the spanwise flow that ultimately leads to the formation of strong tip vortices. But I wonder if trading two strong tip vortices for two "medium-strength" tip vortices, and a couple dozen relatively weak vortices from the tubercles, might amount to no drag reduction at all. In either case, I think drag is a secondary concern to downforce, especially this year.

I also think Holm-boy was correct to point out that the tubercles on the leading edge of the flap serve to quickly reattach flow when DRS is disengaged. If I had to employ the powers of my patented Bio-CFD™, the result would look something like this:


Anyone else thirsty for a scotch on the rocks?

Each tubercle will shed a vortex. When DRS is engaged, those vortices should be shed on top of the flap due to its camber. However, when DRS is disengaged, the vortices will move under the flap, and in so doing will quickly reattach flow to the underside of the flap. It's possible flow will be reattached, or at least be pretty damn close to it, before the flap even completely settles into a closed position. That should make the car more stable under braking at the end of DRS zones, but the vortices shed on top of the flap when DRS is engaged likely means DRS will be somewhat less effective. As they say, there's no such thing as a free lunch.

Comments, corrections, suggestions (insults)?

EDIT: bettererest image

[trinidefender]

Wow, according to that the wing becomes effectively bigger while losing drag causing front section. I wonder how everyone missed on this magic trick for so long, including virtually all airplane designers so far.

And then there is this, the "classic" and wrong explanation of how wings work (applying to the shape ofthe bulges here) : "the flow which passes on the lower part will have to accelerate relative to the flow which passes on the upper part, and this means that will be created a difference of pressures that push even more the car to the ground". I wonder what the wing was doing when it had no bulges?

In my opinion this is "your drawingws on a scheme of a wing" and not an analysis. When an analysis of a novelty yields advantages, advantages and more advantages and absolutely no compromises or negative effects, it is cheering, not an analysis.

Let's be clear, the front section of the leading edge did not become smaller, and the used plane section probably did. And another thing, the air does not "strike the wing", it flows around it (mostly). Unless I am wrong ot the translation is really misleading, that is.

Actually the majority, but not all, of the lift is created is by the airflow speeding u on one side of a wing creating the pressure differential and therefore a force in one direction.

Research has shown that the airflow above a wing (lift wing such as in an aircraft) speeds up more than it should do according to conventional thinking. This has been established by using high speed cameras and pulses of smoke then slowing the images down and watching how the smoke above the wing (low pressure side) speeds up and reaches the trailing edge of the wing faster than the lower side of the wing (high pressure side). Exactly why it speeds up more than expected above is not totally understood however modern mathematical models have been fairly accurate in working out the amount of lift that a wing would create.

On McLarens rear wing it does seem like the bumps on the leading edge really are there to prevent span-wise flow and to reduce tip vortices which are major contributors of drag on the rear wing. Maybe they also help the wing to run a higher angle of attack but to me the the wing doesn't seem to have a higher AoA than the previous version.

One point that many are missing about the bumps reducing span-wise flow is that yes they reduce drag however I don't believe this to be the main reason. The reduction of tip vortices has a large effect of increasing downforce. When you have a vortex rotating around the end of a wing at the wingtip it reduces the effective span of the wing that is working. By reducing the tip vortex of a wing you are effectively recovering some of that lost wing span.

[trinidefender]

http://www.omnicorse.it/img/articoli/ev ... ortice.jpg

Another interesting feature is the vertical support for the rear wing. Most teams are going for as small support as possible to minimise the effect the support has on the rear wing. It seems McLaren have done the opposite. They have lengthened the support. I have to wonder if this is to try to create the effect of using the wing support as a flow conditioner to try and reduce span-wise flow on the wing under yaw conditions.

Anybody else have ideas?

[Lycoming]

I read a paper on this long, long ago, when I first heard of the technology being used on wind turbines. The paper I read basically showed that it works like a vortex generator; it delays stall to a higher angle of attack, without doing a whole lot for lift, drag, or L/D. This paper was on symmetric, single element, relatively high aspect ratio wing though, and this is a highly cambered, slotted, low aspect ratio wing. But nevertheless, I believe the effect is basically that of a vortex generator; energizing the boundary layer by mixing it.

I'm not sure whether or not it should affect flow reattachment delay.

Another interesting feature is the vertical support for the rear wing. Most teams are going for as small support as possible to minimise the effect the support has on the rear wing. It seems McLaren have done the opposite. They have lengthened the support. I have to wonder if this is to try to create the effect of using the wing support as a flow conditioner to try and reduce span-wise flow on the wing under yaw conditions.

Anybody else have ideas?

Possibly, though I think increasing the length of the support doesn't hurt wing performance too much as long as it's not getting wider. There are other ways of reducing spanwise flow, but they may have decided to do it this way to reduce parts count. I'm a little doubtful though because the support doesn't appear to cover the entire chord length of the main plane.

[stefan_]

Hungary 2014 - Thursday (24.07.2014)