2017-2020 Aerodynamic Regulations Thread

[jjn9128]

Wings are useful

The researches RacecarEngineering did (with DynamicFlow Solutions) in 2016 show that skirts (they used mini ones on their different aero configurations) may be very helpful for following and overtaking...
IMO they have many possible benefits and can trigger a positive snow ball effect on the wake, the following car etc.
The covered wheels have benefits too... but the model they used looked like those ugly 2017 indy cars with delta seidepods, big underbody tunnels, covereed floor and wheels etc...
The modified "2017" car was a very good compromise IMO:
https://i87.servimg.com/u/f87/14/79/55/26/222210.jpg

DynamicFlow is somewhere on here, though I've not seen him for a while.

It's the same findings as the original overtaking working group in 2007/08.

"Some very interesting results came out of it and many of them were not intuitive as well. The paddock is full of amateur aerodynamicists, amateur overtaking experts and car wake experts, and actually when you get into the experimentation you find that things were not actually as you expected."

Both then and now the "amateur overtaking experts" called for the underside of the car to be exploited for aerodynamic advantage through the use of ground effects. But the work of the OWG suggested that would be a retrograde step.

"The brief going into the project was that you wanted it all in the floor, all ground effects, and take the wings off the car -- even now everybody says that," Lowe explains. "A lot of the pieces tried were around those themes and we also had the Central Downwash Wing [a concept to split the rear wing into two sections].

"The first interesting thing that came out was that the Central Downwash Wing actually acted negatively on the following car and made it worse, but not far off that was having no rear wing at all. The best thing was to have a rear wing as we did, but refine it by having it narrower and higher. The reason is that the flow structures and the two vortices at the top of the two endplates are very strong energisers of fresh flow to re-energise the wake, whereas if you have no rear wing you end up with a very messy wake that hangs around. These two vortices bring in fresh air from the sides and dispel the low energy wake that's there. So actually you need a strong rear wing and, adjusting a few parameters, you can make it even more effective. That was unexpected.

And the current overtaking group at FOM lead by Brawn/Symmonds/Somerville along with Tombazis at the FIA.

Keeping the wake closer to the centreline of the car isn’t simply an exercise in narrowing the field of turbulence: the significance is, by keeping the turbulent air close inboard, it stays in the zone where it will be collected by the rear wing and thrust upward and, it is to be hoped, over the following car in a phenomenon aerodynamicists refer to as ‘mushrooming’.

“The rear wing helps us when we’re trying to promote closer racing,” explains Tombazis. “It has two strong trailing vortices, which pull the flow up from close to the ground into the ‘mushroom’. This mushroom is pushed upwards quite violently and quickly, allowing clean air to be pulled in from the sides to take the place of the turbulent air being flung upwards. This clean air tends to be higher energy, which has a beneficial effect on the aerodynamics of the following car. “We want to increase that mushroom effect and make it stronger, but also put more of the dirty air into its vicinity to push it up and out of the way.”

But people will continue to bash on about how we should only use the underbody to generate downforce on the car. "Get rid of the wings and we'll get close racing," they'll cry. And my favourite, "bring back ground effect!!!" As if modern F1 cars are sitting in the freestream miles above a racetrack.

EDIT: Sources for quotes - ESPN and FIA Auto magazine - pp36-39

[mzso]

Thank you for the answers in page 100 mates.

I also wonder why the FIA do not ̶p̶e̶r̶m̶i̶t̶ impose the use of skirts around th floor, skirts like the ones RBR and Ferrari used for the 2016-2017 Pirelli tests to simulate higher DF levels for 2017
https://cdn-3.motorsport.com/images/mgl ... ing-th.jpg
They might simplify the aero and greatly reduce the amount of ressources and time teams spend on studying and manipulating that area and the airflow around it

Why bother with skirts? Just ban wings, winglets, aero flaps, all those nasty stuff. And let the shape of the body be the only way to create aerodynamic downforce. That would certainly simplify things.

They would just build wings, winglets and aero flaps into the body shape...

That can also be prevented by regulation. Either explicitly or maybe something like limiting feature size would suffice.

[mzso]

DynamicFlow is somewhere on here, though I've not seen him for a while.

It's the same findings as the original overtaking working group in 2007/08.

Yet real life seem to discredit them completely. What they came up with the overtaking working group accomplished a big steaming pile of nothing. Yet we probably have not soon as close racing as was the case at the end of the ground effect era.
Things don't add up.

And my favourite, "bring back ground effect!!!" As if modern F1 cars are sitting in the freestream miles above a racetrack.

And with good reason... Despite of your pointless hyperbole, since they made the floor flat ground effect is sorely limited and the wings bring the majority of downforce. They worked around it to a degree with making the cars extremely close to the ground but that was also prevented decades ago.

[strad]

Thanks for the videos Dipesh.

[hollus]

...since they made the floor flat ground effect is sorely limited and the wings bring the majority of downforce. They worked around it to a degree with making the cars extremely close to the ground but that was also prevented decades ago.

hmmmm, Willem Toet (almost) dissagrees:

[jjn9128]

Yet real life seem to discredit them completely. What they came up with the overtaking working group accomplished a big steaming pile of nothing. Yet we probably have not soon as close racing as was the case at the end of the ground effect era.
Things don't add up.

....so you disagree with Lowe (in F1 since 1987), Byrne (since 1981), Symonds (since 1982/83), Somerville (since 1995), and Tombasiz (since 1992), under the oversight of Brawn (since 1978)??!?? I'll trust the combined 190 years of F1 experience plus my own 4 years of research into the very topic.

Much of the original OWG work was spoiled by the double diffuser in 2009, then the exhaust blown diffuser, then by 2012/13 the front wings were already getting over-evolved, then in 2017 they ruined everything again to make the cars faster. Following distances closed up between 2008 and 2009 regardless of all that.

And with good reason... Despite of your pointless hyperbole, since they made the floor flat ground effect is sorely limited and the wings bring the majority of downforce. They worked around it to a degree with making the cars extremely close to the ground but that was also prevented decades ago.

The rear wing produces ~20% of the downforce, the front wing 20-25%, and the underbody produces 60-65%... the underbody makes more than the front and rear wing combined.

[turbof1]

DynamicFlow is somewhere on here, though I've not seen him for a while.

It's the same findings as the original overtaking working group in 2007/08.

Yet real life seem to discredit them completely. What they came up with the overtaking working group accomplished a big steaming pile of nothing. Yet we probably have not soon as close racing as was the case at the end of the ground effect era.
Things don't add up.

And my favourite, "bring back ground effect!!!" As if modern F1 cars are sitting in the freestream miles above a racetrack.

And with good reason... Despite of your pointless hyperbole, since they made the floor flat ground effect is sorely limited and the wings bring the majority of downforce. They worked around it to a degree with making the cars extremely close to the ground but that was also prevented decades ago.

Real life did not discredit them. The research was solid and the changes that were implemented too. The reason why we did see underwhelming effect of it, was because the regulations had a loophole for the diffuser, and by the time they got rid of it, the aero became much more sensitive.

Again, as jjn9128 said, these are people who are truly professional experts in their field of work. You shouldn't unnecessarily try to discredit that, rather do a bit of research into the underlying issues.

[mzso]

....so you disagree with Lowe (in F1 since 1987), Byrne (since 1981), Symonds (since 1982/83), Somerville (since 1995), and Tombasiz (since 1992), under the oversight of Brawn (since 1978)??!?? I'll trust the combined 190 years of F1 experience plus my own 4 years of research into the very topic.

Yet of these Byrne with Head came up with an outright ground effect formula when they submitted their proposal for 2013, which was after the utter failure of the 2009 formula. Which doesn't support you stance.
You listed a bunch of names, but I doubt you could quote/reference each of them saying that ground effect is not the way to go. (Not that appealing to authority is not a common fallacy.)

Again, as jjn9128 said, these are people who are truly professional experts in their field of work. You shouldn't unnecessarily try to discredit that, rather do a bit of research into the underlying issues.

They only brought us disappointment so far. So either they don't know what they're doing, or purposefully come up with ineffectual changes. Either of which makes them useless.

[turbof1]

They only brought us disappointment so far. So either they don't know what they're doing, or purposefully come up with ineffectual changes. Either of which makes them useless.

You are ignoring what I explained to be the root cause for the dissapointment. It's not the intended changes from the TWG, those worked actually. It's the double diffuser loophole and shear aerodynamic performance progression that caused it. If you aren't willing to accept facts, we can't have a reasonable discussion. You can also look at this from a different perspective: if not for the work from the TWG, the turbulent flow would have been even much worse, as data suggests overtaking in pre-2009 already required a 2s pace advantage.

The only possible thing you could throw at the TWG is that they maybe should have seen the loophole, but go read Willem Toet's explanation on just how extremely far teams went with regulatory interpretation to exploit the loophole and you'll understand it was not a straightforward thing.

[mzso]

You are ignoring what I explained to be the root cause for the dissapointment. It's not the intended changes from the TWG, those worked actually. It's the double diffuser loophole and shear aerodynamic performance progression that caused it. If you aren't willing to accept facts, we can't have a reasonable discussion. You can also look at this from a different perspective: if not for the work from the TWG, the turbulent flow would have been even much worse, as data suggests overtaking in pre-2009 already required a 2s pace advantage.

How can you say that it worked when the double diffuser was banned for the next year and the situation wasn't even slightly better than before? So it would have had effect for what 6 months, 3? (It's hypothetical, because we never saw any effect in practice) This is useless.
Since it didn't have any lasting effect it was an utter failure. It was supposed to fix following and on-track action, it didn't.

The only possible thing you could throw at the TWG is that they maybe should have seen the loophole, but go read Willem Toet's explanation on just how extremely far teams went with regulatory interpretation to exploit the loophole and you'll understand it was not a straightforward thing.

This is only an excuse for 2009. As I said it was supposed to be the solution to F1's racing, overtaking problems. It didn't even came close to it.

[trinidefender]

You are ignoring what I explained to be the root cause for the dissapointment. It's not the intended changes from the TWG, those worked actually. It's the double diffuser loophole and shear aerodynamic performance progression that caused it. If you aren't willing to accept facts, we can't have a reasonable discussion. You can also look at this from a different perspective: if not for the work from the TWG, the turbulent flow would have been even much worse, as data suggests overtaking in pre-2009 already required a 2s pace advantage.

How can you say that it worked when the double diffuser was banned for the next year and the situation wasn't even slightly better than before? So it would have had effect for what 6 months, 3? (It's hypothetical, because we never saw any effect in practice) This is useless.
Since it didn't have any lasting effect it was an utter failure. It was supposed to fix following and on-track action, it didn't.

The only possible thing you could throw at the TWG is that they maybe should have seen the loophole, but go read Willem Toet's explanation on just how extremely far teams went with regulatory interpretation to exploit the loophole and you'll understand it was not a straightforward thing.

This is only an excuse for 2009. As I said it was supposed to be the solution to F1's racing, overtaking problems. It didn't even came close to it.

Except you're ignoring the fact that the cars were able to follow each other closer even with the negative effects of the double diffuser and then exhaust blowing.

Your earlier statement about the ground effect cars racing closer also doesn't make sense as those cars operated with much less downforce than today. Sure we can remove a lot of downforce and have closer racing but then what separates F1 from any other series at that point?

Oh and lastly...what experience, knowledge and testing have you done to say what will work and what won't?

[turbof1]

You are ignoring what I explained to be the root cause for the dissapointment. It's not the intended changes from the TWG, those worked actually. It's the double diffuser loophole and shear aerodynamic performance progression that caused it. If you aren't willing to accept facts, we can't have a reasonable discussion. You can also look at this from a different perspective: if not for the work from the TWG, the turbulent flow would have been even much worse, as data suggests overtaking in pre-2009 already required a 2s pace advantage.

How can you say that it worked when the double diffuser was banned for the next year and the situation wasn't even slightly better than before? So it would have had effect for what 6 months, 3? (It's hypothetical, because we never saw any effect in practice) This is useless.
Since it didn't have any lasting effect it was an utter failure. It was supposed to fix following and on-track action, it didn't.

The only possible thing you could throw at the TWG is that they maybe should have seen the loophole, but go read Willem Toet's explanation on just how extremely far teams went with regulatory interpretation to exploit the loophole and you'll understand it was not a straightforward thing.

This is only an excuse for 2009. As I said it was supposed to be the solution to F1's racing, overtaking problems. It didn't even came close to it.

You really need to get your facts straight. Double diffusers were allowed in 2010 as well. For the 2011 season they were banned. At the beginning of that season we saw a noticable decrease in following distance. However, like trinidefender says, the development of exhausf blown diffusers and general aero development undid that again.

[FW17]

I still think they are going the wrong direction with this.

These changes are aimed at improving the overtaking and not on closing the field.

To close the field they should have implemented better measures.

[turbof1]

I still think they are going the wrong direction with this.

These changes are aimed at improving the overtaking and not on closing the field.

To close the field they should have implemented better measures.

Closing the field would require further standarization.

I'd prefer making the cars much less reliable, and taking away telemetry and data from both team and driver.

[henry]

As I understand it the objective of the new regulations is to change the overall shape of the wake from wide and shallow (low height) to narrow and tall. The thinking is that a significant proportion the wake will be lifted over the following car and that the “space” underneath this wake will be filled by air from the sides. For the following car the air travelling in its direction will be moving more slowly than under the outwash regulations and so it will generate more downforce.

This would suggest that rather than more downforce from the floor, which inevitably operates close to the ground, we might want less from that source and more from high mounted wings that throw the wake upwards.

It also suggests, to me at least, that high downforce cars that have lesser rear wings will be more difficult to follow.