CFD - 2022 Ferrari F1-75 (sidepod analysis)

[GrrG]

Toto just confirmed in his interview in response to a question on the Ferrari’s PU power that their data shows the Merc carries the most drag. You predicted it

Thanks for the info, is there an article about it or did he say it on TV?

Great explanation.Weren’t they still porpoising with the Barcelona spec sidepods though?

I mentioned this in that post, I think their new design is better than original for outwash on the front of the floor.

Mercedes, Wolff: "We have to be realistic, we are the third force on the track"
"We have a lot of drag on the main straight," he added

https://f1grandprix.motorionline.com/f1 ... -in-pista/

[LM10]

Totos explanaition that they have to run their car lower to extract aero-performance goes hand in hand with your explanaition of what might be their problem! You probably are totally right about what is Mercedes problem and i think its fair to say its probably an aerodynamical one.

Well, it was evident Mercedes is holding on to low ride height a lot more than other teams, they wanted to try whatever else they could to solve their bouncing issues. It could only mean they depend on low ride height for performance. What also comes to my mind is their suspension design, maybe they designed their suspension for low ride height and raising it too much hurts them and takes away setup margin here and there.

I’m starting to wonder if Mercedes even thought of the porpoising issue with these cars in the development phase? Or maybe heavily underestimated it? Why else would they build a concept where the car needs to have a really low riding height to exploit it‘s potential?

[Vanja #66]

I’m starting to wonder if Mercedes even thought of the porpoising issue with these cars in the development phase? Or maybe heavily underestimated it? Why else would they build a concept where the car needs to have a really low riding height to exploit it‘s potential?

Mercedes always ran low ride height and very little to no rake. From every piece of news and information available to the public, the only conclusion is that all teams were surprised by this effect and failed to anticipate it, not just Mercedes. Some teams used their filming days to try the car out, figured they had a problem and lapped around Barcelona with stiff suspension from the first outing, making it less pronounced in the early days. This surprised me a lot, so I had a discussion with two other members who shared some more insight.

Had a discussion on why and how the teams missed ground-effect bouncing during car development with jjn and Vyssion this morning. Reading some comments from teams during pre-season, to me it seemed like they expected to catch any kind of dynamic effect in wind tunnel, but this is limited by "low" speeds of 180km/h and wt models are only 60% so aerodynamic forces are relatively low.

Vyssion shared some insights on what kind of simulations teams mostly do with CFD, the most important part here is that teams don't really run straight-line simulations at all any more, as those are practically useless for cornering phenomena and results. Also, teams might be running simulations mostly at 180km/h as well, so lack of straight-line and "high" speed simulations could have easily led to missing the extent of porpoising.

Another thing jjn added is the outboard floor flexing, creating strong floor sealing which also adds up to overall porpoising phenomena. This would have also been hard to show in wind tunnel, as models are mostly made of metal to preserve the thin edges and thickness, which is usually less pliant than actual composite floors. And, as mentioned, forces in wind tunnel are really low compared to actual car going 300+ km/h... Teams managed to agree to allow floor stays, this obviously helped a bit with those problems, so floor flexing was a big part of it as well.

[Nonserviam85]

How wrong? Quantify. Do you believe having an offset of 10mm on a sidepod of a 2000mm wide car can cause (or not cause) massive changes in overall major turublence structures? Let's see try something:

https://i.ibb.co/1RvSM1C/lewis-hamilton ... -w13-1.jpg

Geometry just wrong? Hardly. Btw, do you have any idea how hard it is to achieve the corellation of that circled bottom separation?!? (I'd like to ask everyone to let NoDivergence answer this first, please. K thx)

If only people could realise how extraordinary is to get this correlation in turbulent flows...

[Andi76]

Totos explanaition that they have to run their car lower to extract aero-performance goes hand in hand with your explanaition of what might be their problem! You probably are totally right about what is Mercedes problem and i think its fair to say its probably an aerodynamical one.

Well, it was evident Mercedes is holding on to low ride height a lot more than other teams, they wanted to try whatever else they could to solve their bouncing issues. It could only mean they depend on low ride height for performance. What also comes to my mind is their suspension design, maybe they designed their suspension for low ride height and raising it too much hurts them and takes away setup margin here and there.

I’m starting to wonder if Mercedes even thought of the porpoising issue with these cars in the development phase? Or maybe heavily underestimated it? Why else would they build a concept where the car needs to have a really low riding height to exploit it‘s potential?

I think there are many teams which have not thought of the porpoising issue. From observation i think there are some teams who got ahead of the porpoising issue quickly. Alfa, Ferrari, McLaren, Red Bull and Alpha Tauri. These teams have something interesting in common and i think this could explain why some teams got ahead of the porpoising issue, while others are still struggling. Ferrari has Rory Byrne as an adviser. He designed the ground effect cars in the early 80's in F1. Red Bull has Adrian Newey who gained experience with cars like that in Indy in the mid 80's. Alfa has Willem Toet, who know ground effect cars from the very beginning of his career in Australia. McLaren has Neil Oatley who also gained experience with ground effect in the early 80's in F1. Alpha Tauri has access to Newey, but also still has Sergio Rinland to advise them, who, if my memory does not trick me also has experience with cars like that. Mercedes, Williams and Renault do not have an engineer with experience in that regard.

[axle]

Womder if Williams called on their old guard for help...Patrick Head for instance. Someone doesn't have to be an employee to give council.

[Stu]

Womder if Williams called on their old guard for help...Patrick Head for instance. Someone doesn't have to be an employee to give council.

Frank Dernie was the aero-wizard

[JordanMugen]

Womder if Williams called on their old guard for help...Patrick Head for instance. Someone doesn't have to be an employee to give council.

Frank Dernie was the aero-wizard

Yes, I'm not sure Head would have much to say! Head's area was mechanical design and manufacturing AFAIK. According to Dernie, it was Head (not Sir Frank) who basically ran the Williams factory while Dernie tinkered in the wind tunnel. (Sir Frank, of course, being in charge of wheeling and dealing.)

[BaSubScribe]

@ Vanja #66. As a Mechanical Engineer with a love for Formula 1 and a basic understanding of fluid mechanics, I just want to say thank you for taking the time to post this. I find your CFD work to be ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE! Its so easy to be an armchair designer and point out everything that could be flawed but to be able to generate those images with LIMITED data is awesome.

[Vanja #66]

@ Vanja #66. As a Mechanical Engineer with a love for Formula 1 and a basic understanding of fluid mechanics, I just want to say thank you for taking the time to post this. I find your CFD work to be ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE! Its so easy to be an armchair designer and point out everything that could be flawed but to be able to generate those images with LIMITED data is awesome.

Thank you, glad to read it was useful to many people

[yallkok]

I believe that the advantage of the F1-75 sidepods will materialize with the increase in temperatures and the consequent greater wear of the rear tires.
I think that in the SF they expected a higher consumption of tires also in these first 2 gp.
Especially in the second gp the Safety car upset their plans ...reducing tire wear

[Mchamilton]

I believe that the advantage of the F1-75 sidepods will materialize with the increase in temperatures and the consequent greater wear of the rear tires.
I think that in the SF they expected a higher consumption of tires also in these first 2 gp.
Especially in the second gp the Safety car upset their plans ...reducing tire wear

Why do you expect this concept to aid rear tyre degredation?

[F1NAC]

I believe that the advantage of the F1-75 sidepods will materialize with the increase in temperatures and the consequent greater wear of the rear tires.
I think that in the SF they expected a higher consumption of tires also in these first 2 gp.
Especially in the second gp the Safety car upset their plans ...reducing tire wear

Both of the drivers upsetted their plan by crashing and not doing race sim

[yallkok]

I believe that the advantage of the F1-75 sidepods will materialize with the increase in temperatures and the consequent greater wear of the rear tires.
I think that in the SF they expected a higher consumption of tires also in these first 2 gp.
Especially in the second gp the Safety car upset their plans ...reducing tire wear

Why do you expect this concept to aid rear tyre degredation?

You can find some information here: viewtopic.php?t=30214
The conformation of f1-75 sidepods decrease the drag of the rear wheels by lowering their consumption.
I also expect much higher consumption on the rear tires of the W13.
The RB is practically somewhere in between

[Vanja #66]

You can find some information here: viewtopic.php?t=30214
The conformation of f1-75 sidepods decrease the drag of the rear wheels by lowering their consumption.
I also expect much higher consumption on the rear tires of the W13.
The RB is practically somewhere in between

Why would tyre aerodynamic drag influence tyre degradation?