2018 Aerodynamic Regulations Thread

[godlameroso]

Who has a more efficient diffuser, this bird?



Or this horse?

[OO7]

Who has a more efficient diffuser, this bird?

https://birdwatchingmurcia.files.wordpr ... t-view.jpg

Or this horse?
https://imgr1.auto-motor-und-sport.de/S ... 149747.jpg

The correct answer is probably this bull:

[CBeck113]

Who has a more efficient diffuser, this bird?

https://birdwatchingmurcia.files.wordpr ... t-view.jpg

Or this horse?
https://imgr1.auto-motor-und-sport.de/S ... 149747.jpg

Please show us the diffusor on that bird and maybe you'll get an answer

[godlameroso]

Who has a more efficient diffuser, this bird?

https://birdwatchingmurcia.files.wordpr ... t-view.jpg

Or this horse?
https://imgr1.auto-motor-und-sport.de/S ... 149747.jpg

Please show us the diffusor on that bird and maybe you'll get an answer

Look at the diffusers, then look at the bird, it's body looks like the central section. The hawks wings have the same general shape as the diffuser in this picture, and if the bird was flying backwards I guarantee it would be generating downforce.

The bird is exploiting aero better than the cars can with its feathers, is it any surprise all the aero appendages on these cars look more and more like feathers?

[PhillipM]

To be honest, you're seeing patterns where they don't exist, not only is the central section on the car purely there to house the gearbox, the diffuser is working in ground effect and backwards.
The tips and spread feathers on the bird are for a completely different effect to that of outward turn and flaps on the diffuser, which are mainly there to link into the low pressure tyre wakes - how many tyres do you see on the bird?

Correlation is not causation

[godlameroso]

To be honest, you're seeing patterns where they don't exist, not only is the central section on the car purely there to house the gearbox, the diffuser is working in ground effect and backwards.
The tips and spread feathers on the bird are for a completely different effect to that of outward turn and flaps on the diffuser, which are mainly there to link into the low pressure tyre wakes - how many tyres do you see on the bird?

Correlation is not causation

The central section of the diffuser has massive performance implications, why bother with vortex generators in that region?

Birds don't need to have tires for the concepts they exploit to be applicable to f1. They have been flying far longer than we have.

[PhillipM]

Put the diffuser in the air. How efficient will it be out of ground effect when the control of vortices has gone to pot?
It'd be terrible, you'd build a completely different shape.

How many fast animals look like an F1 car? None.
Remove the need for the gearbox space and the floor regs there - that central section that you're drawing resemblance from would disappear, are the FIA regulating bird bodies now?

Saying that they don't need tyres to exploit the same effect is ludicrous - the spread and angle wingtip feathers are generally to reduce vortex speeds, to reduce pressure gradients, to reduce drag and lift at the tips.
The outer turned elements on a diffuser are to hook into the lower pressure area behind the tyres, to drive the diffuser harder and increase downforce.
Not to mention that a bird will open and close them, angle, etc, depending on what it needs at the time

You want to see a ground effect bird? Go look at large seabirds.

edit: here you go, wait until he's gliding in ground effect...rather less resemblance now, eh?
Wing flattened out, straightened, primary feathers bunched back together....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YEyzvtMx3s

[godlameroso]

Saying that they don't need tyres to exploit the same effect is ludicrous - the spread and angle wingtip feathers are generally to reduce vortex speeds, to reduce pressure gradients, to reduce drag and lift at the tips.
The outer turned elements on a diffuser are to hook into the lower pressure area behind the tyres, to drive the diffuser harder and increase downforce.
Not to mention that a bird will open and close them, angle, etc, depending on what it needs at the time

Isn't that a bit contradictory? Birds have active aero, these cars are fixed, there's no comparison. My point this whole time is that there are areas on these cars that are sensitive and big performance differentiators, and seeing the resemblance in nature pays off in these areas. Mercedes has sculpted this area and put a lot of work in shaping it, it seems minor, but due to the split turbo it means the engine and transmission is further back than with a Ren/Ferr layout.

The outer turned elements on a diffuser are to hook into the lower pressure area behind the tyres, to drive the diffuser harder and increase downforce.

That's a little simplistic, there is a lot going on in that area, it's not entirely low pressure, the shape of the diffuser and floor means that area has to deal with a lot, there is a high pressure pocket on the slope of the diffuser facing the tire along with the rear tire turbulent wake. There's different philosophies of what to do around here.

[PhillipM]

You're right, there are, and that just proves the point even further - because only one or two of those solutions bares even a passing resemblance to your soaring bird.

If you cut an umbrella in half that'd bare a resemblance to a diffuser too - hell, it even has strakes, lets study racing umbrellas!

Or maybe we should be telling the birds to stick their legs out as vertical vortex generators because F1 cars are doing it.

[godlameroso]

The birds aren't the ones copying...the bird brains in F1 are, to good effect no less. The fluid motion of bird wings, when flying in ground effect(like you showed(which could be where Red Bull got their diffuser gurney/flick up from) and in other scenarios(remember they have active aero on a level an F1 car or any man made contraption can only dream of) shows the most efficient way to deal with different air flows.

Do you suppose a goshawk is worried about drag as it spears through openings the size of your fist at 30+kph? The birds are masters of airflow and they do it without thinking. We could learn a thing or 2.

[PhillipM]

Turn the bird around and look at it's backside, you're still not in ground effect, your resemblance has gone, and the pressure gradient is the wrong way around but at least you've got the air going the right way over it then.

I'll concede the point once the Merc has a full fan of spread tailfeathers.

[godlameroso]

Regulations don't allow it, but they try to get as close as they can, what do you think prompted all those little vortex generators on the bargeboards? We will end up full bird car, look at the 2017 McLaren vs this year right over the side pod it's sprouted 3x as many little vortex generators. Inverted bird car is only a matter of time.

[PhillipM]

Ah, those would be the fingers you claimed were bird inspired too and obivously the way forward because it was mimicking nature - those ones that have now been replaced with update curved ones a la Mclaren?


(arrows not mine)

Which bit of random animal are they from that's better at aero than birds? Is there an oddly shaped insect with bargeboards and a ground-effect floor to seal?

[godlameroso]

Really dude... right on top of the side pods come on. Doesn't look like feathers at all.



Also on that Mercedes image it's full of nature inspiration, those catfish wiskers, the barge boards themselves have feather like serrations, the floor of the bargeboard looks like bent wings.

[PhillipM]

You're right, they don't they look like armour scales from a stegasarous - a dinosaur well known for a it's flying skills.
Which bird has 6 little vortex generators like that stuck out perpendicular from it's body?

You're taking flow structures built for a completely different purpose and then because they look similar on odd occasions, like spread feathers, etc, claiming they should copy the bird.
As someone said earlier, show me the diffuser on the bird you're claiming they should be working towards, because currently, the pressure gradients, the slats/primary feathers, and the airflow are all working in reverse of a diffuser. Unless the bird is flying backwards and upside down?

Of course we will start to mimic organic shapes with aero, simply because we're at the point where much more complex 3d airfoils, vortex, control, etc, can be modelled easily, but when the purpose, execution and function of them are completely different you can't just take a passing similarity from one and claim that's the ideal, that's about as logical as me claiming that since some insects have two wings, and the rear wings have two wings, we should simulate an insect body in the middle of the rear wing.
Because insects have been doing it a lot longer and are much better at it.