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shelly wrote:Some weeks ago a pcture of a catherham in winter testing was published in this forum, showing condensation streaks of vortices coming from the front

Thanks Crucial! That was what I was talking about

Try watching the 2003 Japanese GP....if you look at the 17D's on the straight there are visible front wing vortices, just in front of the bargeboards....not on the sides unlike those on the rearwing.

1) We do not know the longitudinal placement of the forward vortex, but it certainly is not from the FW endplate. I would say it is generated from the sidepod barge board.

Instructive points:

2) The endplates seem to manage flow without generating a vortex. Maybe the vortices stay small and separated around the outside of the wheel.

3) IF the forward vortex comes off the barge board it is certainly doing nothing to seal (create low pressure) for the floor.

Brian

hardingfv32 wrote:1) We do not know the longitudinal placement of the forward vortex, but it certainly is not from the FW endplate. I would say it is generated from the sidepod barge board.

Correct, i knew it was a Lotus but wrong Lotus.
And i knew it was from the front of the car you could see a vortice.

Fantastic picture. Would have loved to see a more zoomed in high-res shot.

You have to excuse the crude explanation. The front wing vortex gets f#&%ed off into the tires and then you do everything you can to manage the chain reaction disaster all the way back.

haha best explanation in the whole thread!

This is the reason I love this forum. I'm learning something every time I visit

I just wish sky F1 would do a show or a 20 minute segment going this far into detail sometimes.

on BBC f1 practice session last year. Sam michael visited Crofty, and went quite in depth into aero and helped explain wake etc that was an awesome show!!

Thanks everyone

The vortex is a deliberate means of shifting the cntre of pressure, (vacuum voided region???) backwards.
In aircraft design, the centre of pressure must be one fuselage width behind the centre of gravity for stability.
That would make the rear wing the final place to make this adjustment before it's actual desired location probably half a mtre behind the car.??????

My 2 cents.

I believe so, which explains the intensive rear wing development; endplate extensions, slits, vertical gurney flaps*, etc...



*Not pictured here, but I think I do recall seeing them on the RW endplate at one point or another.

The front wing does generate vortices and they are probably even much bigger than the ones from the rear wing. You guys just focus on the wrong point of the wing by looking at the outer edges. In fact the sharp cutted wing tips on the middle of the wing are deliberately done like that in order to generate a vortex which is guided with the tuning vanes and bargeboards towards the undercut side pots to seal the floor of the car.

This vortex can be seen on the following picture. Be aware that the a actual vortex will be much bigger, we see just the core of it here.

By the way some smaller vortices are deliberately generated in front of the floor to increase downforce by their lower pressure. Actually they are used to fine tune the floor by moving its centre of pressure.
Notice the steps on the splitter or the saw toot styled bargeboards which Ferrari used to run.

Agree with mep. This was discussed some months ago in a thread "front wing-vortex generators". miqi23 gave some useful insight

elmerfud wrote:The vortex is a deliberate means of shifting the cntre of pressure, (vacuum voided region???) backwards.
In aircraft design, the centre of pressure must be one fuselage width behind the centre of gravity for stability.
That would make the rear wing the final place to make this adjustment before it's actual desired location probably half a mtre behind the car.??????

My 2 cents.

No way... 5% delta from CoG to CoP is typical else you would see huge under/oversteer across speed ranges For land speed stuff sure.