Aerodynamic vectoring: What's the point?

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DiogoBrand
73
Joined: 14 May 2015, 19:02
Location: Brazil

Aerodynamic vectoring: What's the point?

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I know I'm a bit late to the party, but I was watching a video about the Huracan performante, and from what I understand they use something similar to the F-Duct on the rear wing to decrease drag on the straights, all okay so far.

But then the guy said something about aerodynamic vectoring, which means that on a corner the car will stall only the outside of the wing to create more even load distribution between the tyres, basically pushing the inside down and stalling the outside of the wing to compensate for lateral acceleration off loading the inside tyres.
This is also a thing on the Huayra, where it's flaps will some times deploy only on the inside.
This is also a thing on the Porsche 908 LH, at least from what I've seen on Assetto Corsa, the flaps on the edges of the rear wing will create downforce on the inside while actually creating lift on the inside, but that one could be excused for not making sense because it's basically ages old.

Yes, I know that to get optimal grip you'd want the least load transfer possible, but still, a lot of load unevenly distributed should be better than a little bit of load perfectly distributed.

So I ask: Is there any benefit at all that you can create by having downforce only on the inside of the car? If not, are supercar engineers really stupid enough to give up downforce only to have some gimmick to advertise?

I mean, I'm not saying it is wrong, because I have basically no knowledge at all of aero and grip, but I fail to see why you'd have active aero and use less downforce than you can on the corners. I hope I'm the stupid one here.

Edit:
Just so I don't look that dumb, even Kyle, who I believe is a doctor or PhD in aerodynamics talks about this on the Huayra.

I also know that a lot of times supercars and Hypercars are more about the gimmicks on the brochure than actual engineering, but I'd be sad to see engineers giving up performance just to advertise clever aero if there's no actual benefit to it.

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ian_s
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Joined: 03 Feb 2009, 14:44
Location: Medway Towns

Re: Aerodynamic vectoring: What's the point?

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i can see those flaps creating a significant amount of drag only on the inside of the corner, could that actually help the car turn? an air brake only on one side of the car.

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VARIANT | one
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Joined: 30 Mar 2016, 00:56
Location: St. Petersburg, FL, USA

Re: Aerodynamic vectoring: What's the point?

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It's nonsense, OP. Unless you're to the point of overloading the outside tire, both tires benefit from the increased download. VanVulkenberg called this out in his Racecar Aerodynamics book, along with the stupidity of wings that go UP at speed (I'm looking at you, Porsche) as opposed to retracting.

I like Pagani, but that whole flap system is an abortion that a ten year old would design with no aerodynamic knowledge whatsoever. I just cringe every time I see it in action.

cramr
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Joined: 10 Feb 2016, 08:51

Re: Aerodynamic vectoring: What's the point?

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yes, as said above. It's all marketing. Makes no sense in aerodynamics or vehicle dynamics point of view

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