Lotus E20 VD

[Huntresa]

http://www.formula1.com/news/technical/ ... 3/985.html

this is the official F1's site take on the lotus system...it says that air exits between the endplates and the wing itself

Yeah and they also said that the inlet ducts on the airbox appeard at hungary, not at hockenheim where they clearly also were, so F1.com not the best source.

" Like he did in Germany last weekend, driver Kimi Raikkonen also tested the team's prototype 'double DRS' system on Friday. The solution now includes two additional inlets, which have been incorporated into the bodywork on either side of the airbox. "

[PlatinumZealot]

The reason they use the pylon is because they moved the hydraulics from the end-plates. The pylon houses the hydraulics.
In other words the air channels are in the end plates so there is no space for the hydraulics in the end-plates.

Then they would have gone for a nice swan-neck, no need to mess up the underside of a wing for nothing. Also the smooth integration into the air-channel running down the engine cover does hint that they take flow from there. And last but not least, the energy of the flow they take at the upper flap, turned around, turned downwards and then perpendicular to the endplate would be far too low to separate the flow.

You can't use aswan neck when part of the F-duct is in the beam wing. You see?

[superdread]

You can't use aswan neck when part of the F-duct is in the beam wing. You see?

Nooo, actually I can't. A swan neck wouldn't touch the beam wing (which is the one right above the crash structure), it would be mounted on the gearbox or the engine cover. Also, there is no legal reason to duct air through a rear wing (be it beam or main), because you can't make slits in it and why would you transport air from the left to the right side (or vice versa)?

PS Swan necks are illegal because of the awkward rule to disallow bodywork connecting airbox and main wing.

[MarkedOne8]

I may have missed that, but are there any solid reports for Lotus' interesting rear suspension? I have just read something brave, but wanted to check if I have missed something?

Link, please?

[Huntresa]

You can't use aswan neck when part of the F-duct is in the beam wing. You see?

Nooo, actually I can't. A swan neck wouldn't touch the beam wing (which is the one right above the crash structure), it would be mounted on the gearbox or the engine cover. Also, there is no legal reason to duct air through a rear wing (be it beam or main), because you can't make slits in it and why would you transport air from the left to the right side (or vice versa)?

PS Swan necks are illegal because of the awkward rule to disallow bodywork connecting airbox and main wing.

You can have slits in the RW, in the midle 15cm.

[raymondu999]

You can have slits in the RW, in the midle 15cm.

They changed that for 2012, no?

[Huntresa]

You can have slits in the RW, in the midle 15cm.

They changed that for 2012, no?

No ? They did the rule back in 09/10 and it allows those 15cm in the middle, i havent seen any changes on that rule since then.

Edit: "To stall either the top rear wing or the beam (lower) rear wing, you need to blow a slot. In the post 2010 rules, slots are banned in any section of the rear wing (via a 100mm minimum radius rule); this ban applies to all three wing elements aside from the middle 15cm. So to use the DRS duct to blow a rear wing slot, all you’ll stall is the very centre section of wing. This area creates very little induced drag (most of that’s created at the wing tips), so stalling it will not improve top speed by much. Thus it will provide very little benefit."


Also those 15cm is what makes a monkey seat acceptable i assume.

[turbof1]

The back end of the DDRS pipe has a peticular shape. Do you guys think it produces some downforce on its own, something like a money seat?

[superdread]

You can have slits in the RW, in the midle 15cm.

Oh, you are right. There is this radius-rule (presumably they put it in to allow pylons in the middle of the wing).
So you can have radii smaller than 10cm in the middle 15cm of the rear wing, i.e. you could make slots there.
But the flowvis pictures show that Lotus is able to stall way more than 15cm and the triangular shape could not stem from "normal" slits in the wing.

The back end of the DDRS pipe has a peticular shape. Do you guys think it produces some downforce on its own, something like a money seat?

You can't have bodywork in front of the rear wing higher than 75cm (that's 15cm above the sidepods). So they can only connect it to the wing in between the endplates.

[Kiril Varbanov]

I may have missed that, but are there any solid reports for Lotus' interesting rear suspension? I have just read something brave, but wanted to check if I have missed something?

Link, please?

Sorry, no link, but I lost the hard print of the magazine, too. It was talking about clever vertical dampers ... I will have to find out for sure.

[Huntresa]

I may have missed that, but are there any solid reports for Lotus' interesting rear suspension? I have just read something brave, but wanted to check if I have missed something?

Link, please?

Sorry, no link, but I lost the hard print of the magazine, too. It was talking about clever vertical dampers ... I will have to find out for sure.

Your not talking about the pre season banned ---?

[MarkedOne8]

Your not talking about the pre season banned ---?

I don't think so because reactive ride height system was all about front wheels.

[superdread]

Your not talking about the pre season banned ---?

I don't think so because reactive ride height system was all about front wheels.

It also has nothing to do with any sort of damper, it was prolonging the pushrod with the braking momentum.

Otherwise it could be a J-Damper (banned) or a radial damper (not banned, difficult to build and not many advantages).
Although themselves illegal it could be possible to legally mimic the effect of a J-Damper in some form.

[Matt Somers]

but where is the outlet?

In the middle 15 cm of the RW ? Where its legal, we could see on the flowwiz in Germany that something had affected that area.

I seen the flovis pictures and I couldn't see anything, aside from that how would such a system to stall the wing work?

I have no idea, and here is the pic you can clearly see that its a V shape and you got 2 edges forming the V where air or something has blown,

That's not being blown it's just the flow separation being caused by the wake of the engine cover periscope.....

Myself, N1ck & Scarbs believe the devices primary purpose is not for stalling / drag reduction but perhaps the opposite giving more DF when DRS is not in use via the lower cooling exit when DRS is activated the additional air is exhausted through the beam wing monkey seat. This will inherently change the rear wings aero profile. I discussed it over on my blog after Hockenheim: http://www.somersf1.blogspot.co.uk/2012 ... nheim.html

In terms of passive stalling of the rear wing I don't buy/subscribe to it as the variables are too large / complicated in terms of circuit characteristics, fuel load etc unless the stalling happens at almost maximum top speed. This could be done by the air switching from the monkey seat exhaust to the periscope, through the bottom wing plane and exiting in the outer channel vents (shown in the picture below) this would help to reduce the load on the outer edges of the wing, cutting the drag.



Have Lotus not also said that this has be born from the same ideals as the Mercedes concept which uses the DRS as the fluidic switch....

[PhillipM]

That's a massive section of flow seperation from that pylon if it is, I'm not buying that, I still think the vertical slits in the pylon are blowing there to cause the seperation.