Aerodynamic challenge

[trinidefender]

I would like to issue a challenge to the members of this forum. I wonder if anybody can come up with aerodynamic ideas/concepts for an F1 car. I would suggest that things that are close to what has already been done is acceptable while direct copy's are not acceptable.

As per rules followed I would say to stick to the 2015 rules with some bending of said rules being ok (seeing as all teams do it anyway).

Let's see what the members of this forum can come up with.

P.S. Remember an aerodynamic idea doesn't necessarily have to be complicated, simple things such as a new vane or a different form of boundary layer control area just general ideas.
P.P.S. The more information you can provide, the better. Drawings even if very rough would be great and if you have access to CFD software then even better however I wouldn't ask for that.

...oh and for the members new to the world of aerodynamics, don't be afraid to leave a comment or suggestion. All is welcome, I would like this to be a thread for people to learn as well as for new ideas to be discussed.

[hollus]

Is there a load test of floors? Where is it applied?
Now that we have sidepods that do not extend to the floor's edge and tiny coke bottles, the lateral edges of the floor could be designed to flex under the effects of low pressure below and maybe high pressure above induced by the rack angle. In flexing, they could come closer to the tarmac at speed creating something akin to skirts. With the car stationary they would return to their flat shape for scrutineering.

[shelly]

20 tiny wings like turbine blades, 50mm high, on top of the lateral edge of the floor

[marcush.]

Is there a load test of floors? Where is it applied?
Now that we have sidepods that do not extend to the floor's edge and tiny coke bottles, the lateral edges of the floor could be designed to flex under the effects of low pressure below and maybe high pressure above induced by the rack angle. In flexing, they could come closer to the tarmac at speed creating something akin to skirts. With the car stationary they would return to their flat shape for scrutineering.

there is a general ruling about flexing bodywork ..this does not just apply to wings ...

[hollus]

What about a tilted rear wing? In Monza the rear wing does not use much of its regulatory box, so that a, say, 5 degree tilt as shown in the figure could be feasible. The "downfoce" vector would now have a horizontal component pointing to the right. In Monza all fast corners are right handers, as is the case in Montmelo, although there the regulatory box allow much less tilt.
With a tilt of 5 degrees, the horizontal component would be cos(85°)=8.7% for the total force.
The vertical force is reduced as 1-sin(85°) to 99.6% of the total force.
So what your gain in horizontal force is 23 times what you lose in vertical force, an effect limited to small tilt angles.
The real situation might be even better, because the vertical force might be reduced by 0.4% for a constant wingspan, but the effective wingspan is increased by the same 0.4%. This won't compensate fully the lost downforce due to interference from the end plates, but it will partly.
How effective can this horizontal force be in assisting cornering? I don't know.
And the DRS would be more difficult to implement as well.

Is there any regulation prohibiting this?

[PlatinumZealot]

What about a tilted rear wing? In Monza the rear wing does not use much of its regulatory box, so that a, say, 5 degree tilt as shown in the figure could be feasible. The "downfoce" vector would now have a horizontal component pointing to the right. In Monza all fast corners are right handers, as is the case in Montmelo, although there the regulatory box allow much less tilt.
With a tilt of 5 degrees, the horizontal component would be cos(85°)=8.7% for the total force.
The vertical force is reduced as 1-sin(85°) to 99.6% of the total force.
So what your gain in horizontal force is 23 times what you lose in vertical force, an effect limited to small tilt angles.
The real situation might be even better, because the vertical force might be reduced by 0.4% for a constant wingspan, but the effective wingspan is increased by the same 0.4%. This won't compensate fully the lost downforce due to interference from the end plates, but it will partly.
How effective can this horizontal force be in assisting cornering? I don't know.
And the DRS would be more difficult to implement as well.

Is there any regulation prohibiting this?

http://i.imgur.com/vmkpG89.jpg

If you do a free body force duagram on the individual parts of the rear wing you will see that there is a bending moment on your endplates. In trying to push the car to the right, the origin of the force coming from the rear wing, your enplates will start to bend to the right. There will also be a rolling moment generated with the torque arm being the height from the rear wings to the centre of inertia of the car. There will also be a yawing moment in the vertical axis trying to mske the csr turn from the rear. So all of the suspension and enplates will have to be designed for this. This will also be tricky in the braking zone. All this is becausethe force is being generated from such a high point.

[wesley123]

---

there is a general ruling about flexing bodywork ..this does not just apply to wings ...

It's not cheating if you don't get caught!

Imo flexing bodywork(mainly wings) has been done for years already(lots of rear wing failures happening in the early 00's), the bodywork is nothing different.

The issue about this rule is that bodywork will flex either way, plus, if it passes scrutineering it has been declared legal.

[bill shoe]

Is there any regulation prohibiting this?

http://i.imgur.com/vmkpG89.jpg

Interesting idea. It's true that it will cause some end-plate flexing and things like that, but I think it's very difficult to make the case that the optimum amount of wing tilt at Monza is the current zero degrees. The optimum may be less than what hollus suggests (or it may be more), but I don't see any credible case for it being zero degrees.

I think implementing this would be inconvenient because it would force rethinking about other aspects of aero package and chassis setup, and worse yet this special package could only be used at one or two tracks per year. But inconvenience with the new is not the same thing as saying the current is optimum. And very limited test time doesn't help. So maybe just not time to discover and validate the new optimum rather than it being a bad idea.

[J.A.W.]

I have a car with a flexible rubber Kamm-type spoiler - that is designed to flex - for adaptive drag reduction..

[PlatinumZealot]

Is there any regulation prohibiting this?

http://i.imgur.com/vmkpG89.jpg

Interesting idea. It's true that it will cause some end-plate flexing and things like that, but I think it's very difficult to make the case that the optimum amount of wing tilt at Monza is the current zero degrees. The optimum may be less than what hollus suggests (or it may be more), but I don't see any credible case for it being zero degrees.

I think implementing this would be inconvenient because it would force rethinking about other aspects of aero package and chassis setup, and worse yet this special package could only be used at one or two tracks per year. But inconvenience with the new is not the same thing as saying the current is optimum. And very limited test time doesn't help. So maybe just not time to discover and validate the new optimum rather than it being a bad idea.

The tyres would also be under a constant sideways load even when going down the straights.

[Blanchimont]

But 8,7% of the rear wing downforce(30% of the total downforce??) wouldn't be a very high load.

0,087 * 0,3 * 1,2/2 kg/m³ * (3,5*0,7) * 1,4 m² * (300/3,6 m/s)^2 = 373 N

In addition the rear wing endplates could be used to generate a lateral force, the area is quite large. Only problem is the maximum thickness(20mm i believe), so the camber is limited. But with multiple wing elements in a row...

[hollus]

Reviving an old thread here.

So, side force directly from the end plates. Like this?

It should work, and the end plates do have to have a certain thickness anyways, so why not give them an aero profile? Small effect, but minimal, minimal drag penalty, and the surface available is quite large, roughly the pink area here:


What about half inverting that trick so as not to make the car asymmetric?

The low pressure "field" is directed to the inside of both end plates. Say that you apply that only just below the rear wing planes, that low pressure field should interact (and reinforce) that formed below the wing. This could be used to make more downforce in total, but also to make the rear wing a little bit flatter near the end plates. Then this solution would just claw back that little bit of downforce lost, but maybe reducing the overall drag.

P.S. car outline shamelessly "borrowed" from theWPTformula. Hope that's OK.

[Vyssion]

Reviving an old thread here.

So, side force directly from the end plates. Like this?
https://i.imgur.com/cMTpZ3p.png
It should work, and the end plates do have to have a certain thickness anyways, so why not give them an aero profile? Small effect, but minimal, minimal drag penalty, and the surface available is quite large, roughly the pink area here:
https://imgr1.auto-motor-und-sport.de/H ... 146892.jpg

What about half inverting that trick so as not to make the car asymmetric?
https://i.imgur.com/j6B6hnE.png
The low pressure "field" is directed to the inside of both end plates. Say that you apply that only just below the rear wing planes, that low pressure field should interact (and reinforce) that formed below the wing. This could be used to make more downforce in total, but also to make the rear wing a little bit flatter near the end plates. Then this solution would just claw back that little bit of downforce lost, but maybe reducing the overall drag.

P.S. car outline shamelessly "borrowed" from theWPTformula. Hope that's OK.

I could be wrong, but I think that this isn't allowed via the regulations... I'm pretty sure that there is an article for the rear wing that stats that they have to be symmetrical in cross section (whether just a plate or an aerofoil etc) but that may just apply to the pylons..

I suppose youre kinda proposing to use the air which incidents at roughly the turnin angle to somehow generate a larger side force than just a flat plate...? Not really sure to what end that would "help" really... If you ignore the wake of the tyres impinging on the aerofoil profile itself from the same angle (which i feel would just remove any benefit at all) you would also have a loss in performance in a straight line. That is, when youre not turning, your endplates are now a "sidewards" wing generating force in on itself which would probably require stiffer supports and also, the drag vector would still be acting in the global corrdinate, and so you would be introducing more drag with no gain in performance.

Most of the time, the turn in angle isnt really all that high for most corners (low speed chicanes excepted) and is like 6° ish or so maximum. I feel that the tyre wake would just destroy whatever you were trying to do with it, not to mention that if you were to start to oversteer, your aerofoil would be at an angle which most likely would induce full leading edge stall - which is basically what a flat plat would do

Teams did try and use that space in the past - Red Bull back in 2014 tried to put little slots along a curve similar to the suction profile of the main plane element to try and increase their overall wing efficiency.