Franework For Discussion - F1 2011 Aero Regs

[deluge]

THIS WAS COPIED HERE BY DELUGE AND THIS THREAD WAS STARTED BY DELUGE. IT WAS ORIGINALLY POSTED IN THE ENGINE/DRIVE TRAIN FORUM BY Ogami


BY Ogami

I'll sum up my views on the chassis side.

-50% Reduction in drag:

I find it quite good actually, i think not going for this was a little bit of illusory as this is already the trend.
To do it of course radical concept are to be allowed, the main one being the moveable aeros and the second the Ground effects and thus removal of the flat bottom, both i think are great.

One thing i like about that departement is that while the 50% reduction will occur only in straight, a significant part of the proposal is about managing better laminar aerodynamic efficiency mainly by the means of morphing or plasma.

This will help preserving the downforce while decreasing the drag wich will surely lead to very efficient cars, maybe we'll see the comeback of very high lift to drag ratio cars like the GE era ones.


-50% reduction in downforce over 2009 levels(themselves being 50% less than the 2007 ones):

This proposition seems a bit scary until you get that this reduction is aimed for straights and high speeds thus it is a maximum downforce level achievable.

Because of moveable/active aeros the downforce in low speed and medium corner will increase over the current levels and the tyre efficiency is to be increased by 3% added to new suspensions possibilites all in one the plans are to have decreased lap time over 2009, the question will be what will be thoses lap times?

In anyway the maximum downforce level for 2009 is 1250kg.
For a 5G turn at 250km/h (like magny cours turns 6 and 7 or Corpse at silverstone) it requires actually about the 1600 kg of downforce but all depends on the Tyre efficiency and the weight on the tyres so because thoses points are to be increase in efficiency i'm not that worried about high speed possibilities.

As far as lateral acceleration are concerned, the minimal weight system is to be removed so it seems cars are to be lighter (but the drivetrain proposal is conflicting on this point as the drivetraine will be heavier).
If car are lighter= more lateral acceleration aviable.


-Overtaking:

the move for adaptative aeros is definitevely the way to go if you want to have long straight low drag/low downforce and in corners high downforce with still low drag.

The frequencies choosen by the FIA are quite okay and the ride height adjustement is quite okay.

Now on a personnal note i'd like to see pilots being able to control even on a linear basis the set ups, choosing in corner between high downforce/more drag or less dowforce/less drag.

As an auto racing corner is not regular (requires different G's) this could be interesting.[/b]

[tuj]

Good summary. For another, here's mine

[zac510]

Who is ogami and why should I care what he writes?

[Ogami musashi]

You're free man. You're free not caring, you're free contributing, you're free whatever you want...

[zac510]

But are you an engineer or similar?

Surely you are aware that often it is difficult to disinguish between someone on a web forum who is sprouting off rubbish to someone who actually knows what they are talking about...

What elevates the status of your views above mine or anybody elses?

[Ogami musashi]

Well i could tell you the background in aerodynamics i have but well i find it a bit strange that you only rely on reputation/status to dig things.

Don't you have any will of knowing things more? i mean, if i see someone posting on a subject i don't know, i don't trust him because he's this or that, i'll tell you , sometimes you speak with pilots or engineers and they tell you bollocks!
It is because what motivates people are their convictions, and then only after they build their logic.
I'd rather go on some other forums or site seeing if the argumentation is correct or not.

That's why i told you "you're free". You're free to ask some other people if what i said was correct or not, and hopefully they will tell you something like "i don't agree on this part" and then they'll come here and we'll start to talk about and i'll learn more things and that all about the positive side of forums.


Now, i won't tell you "you should believe me!" because i'm far from being 100% sure of what i say, errare humanum est as we say!


By the way i think the person that posted my sentances just meant to make a basis for discussing (or not...one's free to ignore my comments and start from zero).

[kilcoo316]

Some of my thoughts:


I disagree with the drag reduction, if anything I believe an increase in overall car drag is necessary. However, care must be taken to ensure the regions of turbulent airflow - and generators of the turbulence are carefully situated to avoid detrimentally impacting the following car's front wing.

I would widen the car's track again, and make the rear tyres have twice the frontal area they do now (i.e. wider and taller). The front tyre size would remain fixed or get smaller.



In my opinion a major problem with modern F1 is that viewers cannot see how quick and good the drivers are. Hence my rule changes are aimed at bringing ye olde powerslide back into vogue. If the public see the spectacle of the finest drivers in the world having to drift their way through corners (as its the fastest way), then overtaking is not as important, but it should be made easier anyway.

In order to make this (powersliding) possible, an aerodynamic configuration that works well in yaw is necessary. Thus, the rear wing endplate sizes would be cut drastically (this also increases downforce at a level high above the ground plane - a good thing).

The diffuser would be banned... totally. A maximum gearbox and sidepod frontal area through several sections would also be specified to ensure a good flow-rate of air through the suspension and toward the following car.


The aforementioned tyre size changes are there so even when sliding the car around, wear rates should be under control (these tyre sizes [slicks obviously!] can be fine tuned as necessary).



The front wing would be moved back toward the ground plane pre-2001. With the tyre changes and the diffuser ban, it may not be necessary to make it moveable... but that is open to change.


The various winglets around the car would be banned through extension of the closed section ruling currently used for the rear wings.

[tuj]

In my opinion a major problem with modern F1 is that viewers cannot see how quick and good the drivers are. Hence my rule changes are aimed at bringing ye olde powerslide back into vogue. If the public see the spectacle of the finest drivers in the world having to drift their way through corners (as its the fastest way), then overtaking is not as important, but it should be made easier anyway.

Today's tyres have much smaller slip angles than the bias-ply drift machines of yore. The only way that drifting through a corner is faster is if the slip angle of the tire is very large, or a dramatic yaw change is needed (aka hand-brake hairpins). Drifting is rarely the fastest way through a corner.

If you want to see drifting where the technique is actually useful, go watch WRC. But even they don't drift much on tarmac.

[Ogami musashi]

Drifting is never faster than a typical corner on asphalt.
As soon as you loose traction (wich is the basis of drifting) you loose turn rate.

In addition as you mentioned the slip angles are too great to offer the maximum traction VS yaw angle, thus the friction resistance is greater when drifting.

The rallying cases are because on dirty roads there's very few traction at all so in this case drifting is faster, but as you mentionned on asphalt they do not drift (very few, maybe in very low speed corners).

I recall seeing one video of trento bondone hillclimb of 2006, a peugeot WRC 2006 did take the hairpin where the video was shooted in drift, while the group b peugeot 205 did take it regular, the WRC peugeot took 1 more second to complete the turn (this was on asphalt).

i think one point that has been told is that nowadays people can't really judge (myself too) the quality of F1 drivers because the pilotage is very different from the classics.

But why transforming the machines and not educate people???

i mean people that watch rally and GT for example needed to educate themselves on the pilotage differencies, why wouldn't we do the same?

also on the drag topic, you have to be more precise.
You want drag to slow the cars? or drag to make a slipstream?

[kilcoo316]

Today's tyres have much smaller slip angles than the bias-ply drift machines of yore. The only way that drifting through a corner is faster is if the slip angle of the tire is very large, or a dramatic yaw change is needed (aka hand-brake hairpins). Drifting is rarely the fastest way through a corner.

I know.


Hence make the front tyres so small that the drivers have to corner on the throttle (and brakes).



Of course in an ideal world it isn't going to be the quickest way - impose it through the rules.

[kilcoo316]

You want drag to slow the cars? or drag to make a slipstream?

It will do both - you have to be careful that the turbulent wake is above the following car's front wing 1st element though.

[tuj]

Well if the name of the game is to make exciting racing and technology be damned, I say put sprinklers to shoot onto every corner and activate them randomly during the race. No one can say that the recent wet F1 races haven't been exciting!

But in all honesty, I think the proposed 2011 aero regs are quite good.

[Ogami musashi]

If you want a slipstream then you're in turbulent airflow, if no turbulent airflow less slipstream.

Basically what you are proposing is the CDG concept, having the slipstream over the bodywork yet letting the front wing with few perturbated flows.

Just on that topic (because i got it that you want cars to be slower) there's no need to add drag, "simply" to shape flows which is exactly what we do on today F1 cars on the bodywork (all those appendices are there to manage stable flows over the bodywork and wings).

The problem of today is simply the amount of downforce VS profile of the wing, that is, we create too much downforce with wings, thoses wings having very aggressive profiles that end in turbulent flows.

That's why for example when the front wing was in the ground effect the profiles were not as aggressive and thus cars could follow each other without loosing too much downforce (you always loose downforce).

i think actually that's the aero cutting regulations that yield to this situation.


On the powerslide , while i think that would be interesting i don't agree on the interest of replacing current way of driving with that,i think that could be interesting for another series.

[kilcoo316]

If you want a slipstream then you're in turbulent airflow, if no turbulent airflow less slipstream.

Yes - but the position of the turbulent flow relative to the ground plane is of importance - keep it higher = better.

Basically what you are proposing is the CDG concept, having the slipstream over the bodywork yet letting the front wing with few perturbated flows.

Nah, it was yet another ill-concieved idea that was to aid "overtaking".


It ignore the fact that the massive amount of small scale turbulence that would be present would cause load variations in the wing anyway - irregardless of any mean downwash (and that idea was optimistic IMO anyway).

The problem of today is simply the amount of downforce VS profile of the wing, that is, we create too much downforce with wings, thoses wings having very aggressive profiles that end in turbulent flows.

That's why for example when the front wing was in the ground effect the profiles were not as aggressive and thus cars could follow each other without loosing too much downforce (you always loose downforce).

I disagree - better to have an absolute barn door of a rear wing. That makes for a bigger tow (while not really disrupting the flow near the ground - the diffuser and wheels do that). Hence widen the track and ban the diffuser.

i think actually that's the aero cutting regulations that yield to this situation.

I agree, when they lifted the front wing, they removed the damping effect of the ground on the local turbulence field - thus the flow in which the front wing is now travelling through has more turbulence, not less.

On the powerslide , while i think that would be interesting i don't agree on the interest of replacing current way of driving with that,i think that could be interesting for another series.

Fair enough, everyone is entitled to their opinion.

[ss_collins]

full article and response in current Racecar Engineering (with GP2 on the cover)