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Red Bull introduce long awaited DDD

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It's finally there! There has been talk about it for more than a month, but Adrian Newey's design team have finished their version of a double deck diffuser, a device that brings several tenths of a second per lap. Newey has however claimed that while it will be some step at Monaco, the new design should benefit the car more at circuits with high speed corners.

The new diffuser adds an exit channel above and ahead of the usual one which has a constant height over the whole span of the diffuser. Apart from the extra upward flow thanks to this, the inner fences now also feature are small cut-out that allows air to flow into the central diffuser channel. This is also featured with many other teams and was debuted by Brawn GP.

Comments

By Sikthskies on 24-05-2009 at 01:30

Be good if we could get this in higher res

By Saribro on 24-05-2009 at 01:31

Fairly similar to Ferrari's first attempt at DDD then.

By Raptor22 on 25-05-2009 at 23:18

they had similar packaging constraints so the solution is similar

By kilcoo316 on 26-05-2009 at 20:34

Errr.... its nothing like that - its got two separate ducts ahead of the end of the plank feeding to channels either side of the gearbox.

See the picture of Vettels car up on the crane.

By kilcoo316 on 26-05-2009 at 20:35

Here is the picture I'm on about:

By BreezyRacer on 29-05-2009 at 03:36

Thanks for the pic. I lightened and contrasted it upa bit and what an interesting shape. I'm a little surprised at how step the initial rake of the diffuser is. I had heard of designs like this before with the very sharp crease in the floor where the diffuser starts with a step angle. It would seem that there must be a ton of turbulence in that radical of an angle. However considering that the lower wing pulls from the diffuser maybe there's enough air speed to clean even that up. Hard to imagine.

Of course the prime air is going to the upper level of the diffuser. I have to wonder, looking at the photo if the there really is a roof on the top of the double decker or not. It would seem more effective if there wasn't one, so that again the rear wing provides the pull.

One last thing .. check out the diffuser outer sides and the trim out outside of it. It's not flat like you usually see .. it's more like the endplates of a front wing, where that shape is designed to create a VG that reduces drag at the front tires. What's that shape doing back here? Maybe it improves air direction .. dont know about that one ..

By BreezyRacer on 29-05-2009 at 19:04

Studying this some more .. what if the red bull's upper diffuser had a divider in it to separate right from left sides? The purpose would be to keep one side of the diffuser strong in yaw instead of compromising the draw by mixing the two sides?

BTW, after some study I'm thinking that the lower side plates (the dished sections) must be for making the wing (or in this case diffuser) stronger at the end plate areas. usually these plates provide isolation from tire turbulence blowing into the diffuser area. It looks like the regs limit where you could could run this lower plate hence it only runs along a short span.

By BreezyRacer on 29-05-2009 at 20:06

One more thing (and sorry for the double post .. not sure how that happened) .. I'm surprised that nobody has featured the mini diffusers Red Bull added to the sides of all the RB cars from Malyasia on. I would love to see detailed pics of those including how much of the floor is cut away after the flip ups. That poor Vettel wiped his out on that crash in Monaco so it's not in the pic. Looks to me like they are mini diffusers and flip ups .. wonder what that's worth?

By BreezyRacer on 01-06-2009 at 16:17

BTW, did anyone notice the lower center section of the underfloor was reshaped along with the diffuser? It seems wider at it's widest point, ahead of the inlets. Quite nicely curved too. The old one was a straight line. See floor pics in the forum, http://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewto ... f=6&t=6830 about halfway down the posting.

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