F1technical.net

every news agenci is talking of the new bmw side pot wing in f1technical to any pics out there

damn manchild do you have ever f1 site on the internet wired into your brain

they look pretty turbulent to me, then again, with aerodynamics you can rarely see whats going to be good and what isn't. i.e. a brick is surprisingly aerodynamic!

It looks like they've combined the Honda and Super Aguri barge boards together.

I don't quite see what the fuss is about, it looks like a slightly larger Honda/Toyota/Williams wing. Would like to see a better photo though.

Ever since Honda developed the sidepod flow conditioner I knew we would start seeing it on other cars. It is a very logical update, as that area on the sidepod has a very tight radius of curvature, and I'm sure there is some flow separation there. These flow conditioners should accelerate the airflow across this region and prevent it from stagnating. This should significantly decrease the drag on the car.

So, since the start of the season alot of teams have added these.

Honda
Super Aguri
Williams
MF1
Renault
Toyota
BMW


That's quite convincing. They must work pretty well.

I would seriously doubt there would be flow seperation resulting soley from the sidepod curvature. F1 cars are very low speed machines after all.


I think the thing is damping out the large/medium scale turbulence off the front wheel wake, which may cause local seperation bubbles due to localised adverse pressure gradients. Its possibly splitting the cleaner flow from inside the wheel and the wheel wake itself, and funnelling the cleaner air down the side of the car and into the diffuser => better quality air = more downforce.

flynfrog wrote:damn manchild do you have ever f1 site on the internet wired into your brain

I just know where to look

No, I think you are somewhat correct about reducing drag but I'm pretty sure that all of these aero devices lately (including Mclarens "horns", and BMW's twin towers) are all aimed at reducing turbulence from the car ahead in corners. You can increase all the downforce you want but once you get behind Schumi or Fernando, for instance, all gains are lost, and you can't get close enough for that rare pass we're seeing this year. The teams are focusing more on maintaining downforce while following another car which is why we are seeing all these appendages being used, being dropped, experimented with etc. This is an more an art form than science because wind tunnels can't properly produce accurate data from following a car. It has to be tested and can be very finicky, due to temperature, air pressure, humidity differences etc.
It's too bad BMW's twin towers were banned because it could have been interesting to see if their passing performance would have improved...

G-Rock wrote:The teams are focusing more on maintaining downforce while following another car

Sorry, gotta say I disagree entirely.

It is impossible to maintain the same downforce and balance levels over the car in the wake of a preceding car, the teams won't even try to achieve it [although, obviously given two options A & B, both provide same improvement but B is better in high turbulence they'll pick B].

The horns [and BMWs fins] you speak of are there to increase downforce of the rear wing in corners, and to improve the lift distribution of the rear wing in corners as well.

I thought teams can not do that much to turbulent air in hittting there front wing because of the height of the front wing is so sensitive to incoming air compared to acouple of years ago when they were lower to the ground?

Sorry Kilcoo, but you are wrong. Your thinking is very old school. Have you ever seen the turbulence coming off an F1 car? It's a combination of vortices and pressure waves. To maintain stabile downforce, you need to straighten that out. Obvously you can't do anything about the front wing but you can smoothen the airflow to the rear wing thereby at least having a stabile rear end while in the wake of another car. If you still have doubts, talk to a wind tunnel expert.

G-Rock wrote:Sorry Kilcoo, but you are wrong. Your thinking is very old school. Have you ever seen the turbulence coming off an F1 car?

Then I want to ask you why F1 teams created slits on the rear endplate to reduce turbulence if there is no turbulence? ?

G-Rock wrote:Sorry Kilcoo, but you are wrong. Your thinking is very old school. Have you ever seen the turbulence coming off an F1 car? It's a combination of vortices and pressure waves. To maintain stable downforce, you need to straighten that out. Obvously you can't do anything about the front wing but you can smoothen the airflow to the rear wing thereby at least having a stable rear end while in the wake of another car. If you still have doubts, talk to a wind tunnel expert.

Have you seen the turbulence coming off an F1 car?


What body work do they have to remove all scales of turbulence from the airflow upstream of the rear wing? [Please don't say the horns! I want a serious answer] To damp out the turbulence you at least need a plate of a length equal to the largest eddy in the turbulent flow - and the horns/middle wing are far from being that.


I think you underestimate the scale of the problem to be honest. The aerodynamics on an F1 car are highly tuned, with a narrow operating window to achieve such high performance, if you want to design a car to cope with turbulent air from the car ahead, it will never be quick enough to actually get in the wake.

Does anyone have any data to prove me right (and Kilcoo wrong, hopefully) This type of aero research has become in issue in the last four years so it has to be current data.