Aerodynamics: at what speed?

Breaking news, useful data or technical highlights or vehicles that are not meant to race. You can post commercial vehicle news or developments here.
Please post topics on racing variants in "other racing categories".
Penoske
Penoske
0
Joined: 24 Jun 2019, 09:08
Location: London

Aerodynamics: at what speed?

Post

On a road car, driving at speeds under 100mph, do aerodynamics play a significant role in lift/downforce?
It seems a flippant question, but I am currently finding myself reading Simon McBeaths 'Competition car aerodynamics' book and wondering how relevant it is to me.
So, is it worth starting to look into the aerodynamics of my car in an attempt to reduce lift, if I am never likely to be driving at high speeds?
Is it still worthwhile in the context of fast road driving?
The car in question is a 60's design, low drag but with no effort to reduce or control lift and a reputation for being unpredictable in certain circumstances.

User avatar
Tim.Wright
330
Joined: 13 Feb 2009, 06:29

Re: Aerodynamics: at what speed?

Post

If the aero forces get upto at least a few percent of the static weight forces you will feel some small handling differences but probably no measureable grip improvement. That starts to happen when the aero forces get to 5-10% of the static weight forces.

To get aero forces up to a few percent on a road car at 100mph you need pretty big changes. You're more likely to feel the difference if you pile the modifications on one axle rather than sharing it front/rear.
Not the engineer at Force India

User avatar
bigblue
24
Joined: 01 Oct 2014, 12:18

Re: Aerodynamics: at what speed?

Post

Penoske wrote:
24 Jun 2019, 09:15
The car in question is a 60's design, low drag but with no effort to reduce or control lift and a reputation for being unpredictable in certain circumstances.
Oh god, it's a Miura ;-)

User avatar
humble sabot
27
Joined: 17 Feb 2007, 10:33

Re: Aerodynamics: at what speed?

Post

Or a Porsche. They were even more notorious for lift. Actually, we could keep going. Very few cars saw windtunnels in the '60s and even those that did had major correlation issues, even just talking about pounds of total drag, nevermind lift.
the four immutable forces:
static balance
dynamic balance
static imbalance
dynamic imbalance