Rear Wings

[Ritchie]

Hi Guys,

Well this is my first post so please be a little gentle with me

I am a final year student at the uni of herts.

Part of my project is to desgin a rear wing using CFD for the SAE formula student car, not scritly F1, but i am only a wee student

Just after some info really.... So if anyone could answer any of these questions in as much or little detail as poss then please do

Need to find out what airfoils are used for rear wings?
(NACA 4-series, 5-series etc...)

One for the aero people out there, is there anywhere i can find information on these standard airfoils, i.e. when NACA designed it, it generated x lift at x speeds

And does anyone know how to use PHOENICS cos i am finding it a pile of brown smelly stuff.

Well guys this is it for the moment as i am getting a little stressed with very little help form tutors

All help greatly apprecitaed

Ritchie

[Monstrobolaxa]

Hi Ritchie.

About the NACA airfoils.....try the following link it has alot of Fluid Mechanics/aerodynamics links....you might find there one or 2 web pages that might help you.

By the way when you finish your project could I take a look at an abstract of it.....cause in 3/4 years I'll also have to do a project....so I'd like to know how to stucture the thing!

http://www.engr.usask.ca/~drs694/fluidmechanics.htm

[Blix]

Most of the wise people that I have talked to have said that a wing on an SAE/Student car is not particularly effective due to the low speeds...time and resources are better spent on mechanical grip. If you must have a wing, make sure it causes as little drag as possible.

[Reca]

If you want to use NACA airfoils, Abbott, “Theory of Wing Sections” is the usual starting point for a first selection, there are Cl vs alfa, Cl vs Cd etc for a variety of airfoils. Then on the web you can find some small programs to obtain the coordinates of NACA airfoils (or directly a CAD file, usually dxf) starting from the NACA code (on Abbott you should find the equations to derive them, not sure since I don’t have it by hand at the moment)
Another starting point that I would consider, and maybe more useful : the FIA technical rules for F3. The 3 section that can be used for the rear wing are fixed and defined there, just a bit of work is required to copy the coordinates :
http://www.fia.com/regle/REG_TEC/Annexe ... es/275.pdf

[Guest]

Cheers for the replys guys,

Yea i know most people say that a rear wing is usless on the SAE cars, but there is no actual techincal paper prooving this (well until i have finshed mine )

Its a bit of a werid project really, the aims are to proove somthing is worthless, but should put all the hearsay that they are useless or that they are great bla bla bla to rest. There are some teams about that use wings with very affective results but its all about time and money i suppose. These guys have the best wings to my knowledge
http://www-personal.monash.edu.au/~fsae ... 003car.htm

Thanks again, and if anyone else has any ideas, come on down.....


Ritchie