Nose cone idea

[manchild]

Two versions shown on pic - same idea. Would it work?

pic shows cross section of nose cone

[Tom]

It might work, you can't really tell without a wind tunnel or CFD, but you would hit trouble in the crash tests.

[tomislavp4]

Yeah, I´ve tought of this also.

(click for big)

the lower picture shows current designs, the air from the front wing hits the nosecone on the lower side creating LIFT

in the new design the air goes over the nosecone (part of it I guess) so the lift is not experienced + the wing-shaped front section of the nosecone adds downforce

But this is only my opinion, we still need CFD to see if it really works

[Carlos]

Manchild - It reminds me of a leading edge flap. Here are a few links...but I will have to leave comment to our "aero guys."

http://www.zenithair.com/stolch801/design-wing.html
http://adg.stanford.edu/aa241/highlift/ ... intro.html
http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=239334
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leading_edge_slot

[allan]

i agree with tom on this idea...
I thought some supercars used this design too, such as the F50 and the Paganni, am i right?

[Ciro Pabón]

It seems a solid idea. Reminds me of the slots on the front of aircraft wings. I think of three effects that can diminish its benefits.

1. I don't know if the lift that tomislavp4 mentions is related somehow with the air you wish to direct to the undertray. In this case, maybe part of the downforce generated in the Manchild Nosecone could cost downforce at the undertray, because it would rob it of air.

2. The air that exits the "slot", in front of the "windshield" also interacts with the upper body. I don't know if the current body design has the "wrong" shape (it's convex) or what effect has this air on the body.

3. From intuition, it seems to increase drag. The car has two noses now and the "second" one is blunter than the current one.

I can think of three good things:

1. It's cool.

2. I think that the frontal crash tests would have no problem (after all, you can design the shape of the beam box that connects the "new nose" to the rest of the car to give it the rigidity desired, at the cost of section of the air passage. Maybe the critical forces would be lateral. Are there lateral crash tests?

3. Again, the design offers a "crushable volume", with two separate sections that could be designed to "collapse" in front of the driver. That maybe can be used to diminish deaceleration exerted on the "main body" on a crash. It's like a front wing on steroids in this sense.

... and a happy Friday afternoon, btw.

[sasquatch]

why can i never see the pictures?? Are they removed quickly from the server?

[manchild]

1. I don't know if the lift that tomislavp4 mentions is related somehow with the air you wish to direct to the undertray. In this case, maybe part of the downforce generated in the Manchild Nosecone could cost downforce at the undertray, because it would rob it of air.

Thanks for clarifications of pros and cons Ciro (saves me time).

Diffuser is fed by air picked up below sidepods. Besides, front wings are high and the air that would go trough nose cone would be the air traveling on top of the front wing. Also, few years back I had another idea - something like this one only inverted with aperture in nose cone that would direct air below and I got answers that it would kill feeding of airbox...

BTW, perhaps benefit would also be better feeding of airbox and with slightly cooler air?

i agree with tom on this idea...
I thought some supercars used this design too, such as the F50 and the Paganni, am i right?

They use such outlets but for hot air from radiators I think.

sasquatch, can you see them now? I have no problem seeing them. Anyone else?

[RH1300S]

Nice idea - thinking out of the box again?

My thoughts based on observation and guesswork

My understanding of how this works.....this type of arrangement is used often in sports cars to get air out of the heat exchangers (hate to word radiator ). The idea is to exploit the low pressure as the air accelerates over the nose of the car. The air in front of the heat exchanger is higher pressure, so is encouraged through it and into the low pressure area on top of the nose.

Probably not so much downforce inducing - more a reduction in lift.

I suppose it would only work if the air under the nose is at higher pressure than the air over it.

The air under the nose at that point is (presmuably) acclerated through the gap between the wing and the nose - so there may not be such a pressure difference.

Of course, doing this robs the under floor of the car of some (possibly) very useful air..................

Cool thinking 'though.

[tomislavp4]

I think I can make quick model of a car with this nose in SolidWorks but only if someone can run a CFD simulation later

[MMUK]

I reckon going with the inverted aperture would be better, feeding more air under the car. Also, in the current setup the air could have a difficult time negotiating the current aperture angle, you'd have to have a favourable pressure gradient for it to want to go up the aperture.

Ill mesh and run any CFD models you have if required. Flow vis pics as well as numerical data will follow. It would have to include a simple front wing though, to gain a better understanding of the required onset angle onto the aperture.

[modbaraban]

I reckon going with the inverted aperture would be better, feeding more air under the car.

Wouldn't that create quite a lift?

It would have to include a simple front wing though, to gain a better understanding of the required onset angle onto the aperture.

It would be perfect to have a model of an existing car to run it with and without the aperture to see the difference.

[MMUK]

perhaps locally on the specific region of the nosecone, but the downforce gain under the car due to increase mass flow could outweigh it if designed properly.

The huge surface area of the underfloor means its the place where downforce gains are easily made.

[MMUK]

It would be perfect to have a model of an existing car to run it with and without the aperture to see the difference.

yer that would be ideal

but running a full car requires serious computing power to achieve reasonable results!

[tomislavp4]

I can model simple stuff but not current f1 cars car with simple wings an so is ok but for a more complex model I must leave it to someone else

Anyway this is just to see how the air will flow over the cone so we don´t really need mp4-22 something simple will do the job