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I hope this question does not come off redundant, but what do the louvers in the rear end plates accomplish? I am really interested in aerodynamics and am so glad i found this website. Thanks in advance for the insight. I did a search, but could not come up with anything.

All end plate design is mainly aimed at minimizing vortex generation at the wing tips unless you just want to maximize the area for sponsor placement. So the gills or louvres in the end plates also serve to reduce vortices and the drag they cause.

i thought the louvres would simply bleed air lowering the pressure on top of the wing increasing downforce

wesley123 wrote:i thought the louvres would simply bleed air lowering the pressure on top of the wing increasing downforce

How does lowering the pressure on top of the wing increase df? Lowering the pressure beneath the wing increases df, not above I´m also curious about the louvres on the endplates, hope someone has better insight in them...

they are aerofoils by cross-sectional design, so they aid downforce. however, their lift vector is such that the overall force component (lift + drag) actually provides a reduction in drag. so viola: downforce goes up and drag goes down. theres a reason why everyone has 'em

First of all we must acknowledge the existence of the end plates, which are there to help and ease the natural vortex formation which would usually continue to travel closer to the wing center line, as opposed to the moment with end plates, which pushes those vortices outboard. Next we have the reason for their creation - unfavorable pressure gradients caused by the levels produced beneath and above the wing horizontal area. The vortex rotation direction is a normal one, as opposed to the counter-rotating patterns down at the diffuser.

The louvers on the rear wing are there to just bleed air and try to equalize this pressure transition region, thus reducing drag and therefore increasing the effectiveness of the wing itself.

http://scarbsf1.com/blog1/2011/08/08/an ... ur-trails/

This should help in the details

Endplates make it a lot more difficult for high pressure air on the top surface of the wing to leak around to the low pressure air underneath the wing, maintaining the pressure difference over the full area of the wing and increasing downforce.

At some point the law of diminishing returns kicks in and increasing the endplate size does not deliver any further increase in downforce and only contributes to additional drag through increased surface area and unnecesarily constraining the vehicle wake.

My opinion is that the mandatory size of the endplates is far greater that required by aerodynamic benefit alone, so the louvres are there to allow the airstream a lateral component to follow its natural path where it is not needed for downforce duty, whilst maintaining the lateral projected area required by the rules.

pretty in depth thread about this already

http://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewto ... f=6&t=9427

The only reason they are discussing here is because a newly registered person decided to bump this 3 year old topic with something completely useless

cwb wrote:My opinion is that the mandatory size of the endplates is far greater that required by aerodynamic benefit alone, so the louvres are there to allow the airstream a lateral component to follow its natural path where it is not needed for downforce duty, whilst maintaining the lateral projected area required by the rules.

Can't get on with that theory - some teams have bigger cutouts at the front of the endplate than others and pretty much everyone has louvers so area argument doesn't work. Must be some benefit to them on their own, probably a resultant lift force on them being small wing elements.

F138 rear wing and endplate.



Vortices forming from the F138 at Jerez. Cool weather, low humidity.



My belief is that the slatted endplates move air out from under the rear wing, further lowering the pressure, increasing the downforce. For years we got used to watching the air from the rear wing directed up. Now a part of it is being directed sideways and out. I can't wait to see how cars following it behave when they attempt to pass.

Interesting theory. Does anyone think it is feasible that they would add something that has very little benefit to their car, but makes it a lot harder for other cars to follow? If this is feasible then they would expect to be in front most of the time?